Annual Evaluations
by financebabe
Summary: Dr. Amy Walker from Saving Lester is back from her honeymoon to begin the annual evaluations at RangeMan. This story will be a collection of one-shots as the guys let their guards down with the new RangeMan shrink.
1. Hector

_Standard Disclaimer: The Plum universe below is all from the creative genius of JE._

_Fredda (Rangergirl1234) thanks for signing on for another story. Knowing your beta skills are at work is such a relief._

_Amy (beancounter74) thanks for being willing to reprise your roll as Dr. Amy Walker._

**Chapter 1 - Hector**

_A/N: In order to save us all from my poor Spanish skills, I am assuming all the dialogue between Dr. Walker and Hector below occurs in Spanish. _

I can't believe I let Stephanie talk me into this. When Ranger announced he was bringing the lady doctor on board and that she would be in charge of our annual evaluations, I was thrilled. I figured she would just pass us all and we could skip this whole waste of time.

I guess I was a little quick on the celebration because the next day Stephanie cornered me in the electronics room and asked if I'd be willing to do my evaluation first to set an example to the other guys that it was important. I've never denied that woman a thing, but she was asking for something I could not give. I had things in my past that were better left there, and I had no intention of baring my soul to a head doctor, no matter how much people thought of her.

In the end, I gave her the only promise I knew I could keep. I promised to come voluntarily, and I would not try to scare her. And that is how I came to be sitting in a little room next to one of Bobby's medical check-up areas. I promised I wouldn't intentionally scare her, but I can't just sit here doing nothing, so I brought my knife and stone.

I heard Bobby and his woman come off the elevator laughing. I can tell she has been good for him and that on top of her friendship with Stephanie earns her some respect in my book.

I tried to ignore the sound of them kissing right outside the door, but I guess being newlyweds makes it hard to keep the sickening sweet sounds to a minimum. I have to give her credit though, when she walked through the doorway her face was not reflecting the moment she just shared with her husband. It was professional, but not cold. She also didn't seem surprised at what I was doing.

I sharpened my knife with the old shrink too, but for him I would work the stone on the blade without watching my hands. I kept my eyes trained on him, daring him to ask me a question. The wimpy shit never said a thing after asking if there was anything I wanted to talk about. Then he would scramble behind his desk and start writing on his yellow pad of paper, and when the little bell on his alarm would signal our hour was over, he would jump up and open the door trying to stand as far away from me as possible. With him I wanted to see him sweat, so it was a game. I had no ill will toward Dr. Walker, so I sharpened my knife only to have something to do.

After she walked in and opened a file, which I assumed had something to do with me; she seemed to speed through the multiple pages of handwritten notes before making a sound of frustration and shutting the folder quickly. Whatever was on that paper didn't please her. I knew she was a soldier and as I watched her I had to work to keep a smile off my face. Her jaw was working from side to side as she reigned in her temper. I always thought a woman who was able to feel her emotions without being reduced to hysterics by them was a fascinating thing to watch.

Satisfied she had gotten over what she'd been thinking about, she turned and looked at me for a few seconds. I met her gaze at first and then remembered my promise to Stephanie, so I looked down at my hands and concentrated on what I was doing.

Then in perfect Spanish she began to speak. "Who taught you to sharpen a knife?"

I looked up to see if she was serious about that question. There was nothing for me to read on her face, so I didn't see the harm in answering it. "No one taught me. I learned it myself."

"That explains it," she said, getting up and walking over to sit on the little table in front of my chair. "May I?" She asked, holding out her hand for my knife.

I hesitated. Was this a trick to disarm me, thinking if I couldn't intimidate her I would play along and spill my guts? Fortunately, I had another knife at my ankle; there was no harm in giving her this one. So I flipped the handle around to hand it to her that way and sat back to see what she thought she was doing. I always had a gun on me, but I preferred my knives. It was how I learned to fight on the streets, and if you were good enough with them they were just as lethal and a lot easier to conceal.

She stood up with my knife and walked over to her desk to tear off a piece of paper from a yellow tablet. Here we go with the damn yellow pads again. But what she did next I didn't expect. She held the paper in her hand so that it stood out stiffly and then sliced across it in a smooth stoke with the knife. It cut in but it tore about half way through.

Thinking she'd made her point she looked back at me and said, "See, the blade isn't smooth. There are places that are sharp, but because your stone is dry, pieces of metal come off the steel and then grind against the stone and blade simultaneously, which makes it jagged instead of smooth. I suppose if you apply enough force it will still cut through most things, but if you're going to go through the trouble of carrying a knife, you want it to be as perfect as possible."

I was at a loss for words. I didn't talk much, but it was usually because I chose not to, not because I had nothing to say. Her words were so unexpected that I had no thoughts in response.

Not really expecting me to say anything, she walked to the corner of the office and opened the door which lead to a small bathroom. She wet a paper towel and brought it over before holding her hand out for the stone I was using. I held it out to her, figuring I had nothing to lose, and watched as she wet the stone completely with the dripping towel and then opened the knife efficiently with one hand and began to move the stone over the blade at an angle to the point. Then she flipped the knife over and did the same thing to the other side of the blade. Occasionally, she would stop and look at the blade or run her finger over it, but she didn't hurry, nor did she seem to mind me watching her.

When she finished she picked up the piece of paper in her hand, folded it over, and brought the knife down it, effectively slicing it in half as though it were butter on a dinner table. She turned the handle back and handed it to me. "See?" She asked, pointing to the knife.

I ran my hand down the blade and had to admit, it had never been that smooth. It was deceptive because on its side one would almost think it wasn't a threat, but change the angle only slightly and it would obviously cut through flesh with no resistance.

I couldn't help but smile at the obvious improvement her efforts had made to my weapon. Then I decided to give her a test of my own. I folded the blade back into the handle and put it in the holster at my belt before bending down and pulling out the switchblade at my ankle and handing it to her.

She hit the knob to engage the blade as though she spent plenty of time playing with weapons like mine. Then she looked at the blade and grimaced. She pointed to a place about half way down and said, "There is a nick in the blade, so we can sharpen the rest of it around that imperfection, but without a metal file and a lot of work, we won't be able to get that out. Still, it's better than nothing, and quite frankly, if you know what you're doing, that little mark isn't important. It's only a problem if it's in the wrong hands."

She looked in my eyes when she said that. I had a feeling she wasn't really talking about the blade, but refused to ask. I guess she felt that just because something had a perceived flaw in its appearance didn't mean it still couldn't be useful. Instead of trying to figure out her coded comment, I watched her work with careful precision as she moved the stone on the metal and then inspected her work. When she was finished she twirled the handle in her hand and spun it in the air, catching it easily and then folding the blade back inside.

"Thank you," I offered when she handed it back to me.

"You're welcome," she replied with a smile before standing up and saying, "Now that we've got that out of the way, maybe you can do a favor for me."

Here it comes. I knew this was going too well to be true. Doctors didn't do things for people like me without a high price. If she thought just because she had a respect for a good knife, and she helped me sharpen mine that I was going to just answer all her questions, she had another thing coming. I'd come up with some other tactic to avoid looking at her and shut down completely if she tried pushing me.

"Ranger wants me to use this office, so I was setting up the computer, but I have way more wires than reasons I can come up with for needing them. I wondered if you'd help me sort this out?" She pointed to the side of the desk, and I saw what she meant. There was a tangled mess of wires back there that absolutely didn't belong.

"I'll help," I quickly offered, glad to have a task that I knew I could do and that I could use as a tactic to avoid her assessment. I moved to the back of the desk and pulled the nest of cables away to sit on the floor and sort them out. Some were in knots, and just as she thought, most were unnecessary, but the only way to fix this mess was to take the time to straighten it out one line at the time.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" She asked as though she weren't happy to just sit and watch me work. She reminded me more and more of Stephanie the longer I knew her.

"I can do it," I told her. The minutes ticked by, and as I began to make headway I figured it wouldn't hurt to have a little conversation, so I stopped and looked at her to see her watching me. Then I glanced at the top of the large desk at the folder she'd been reading and asked, "Why did it make you mad to read that file?"

I immediately looked down, giving her time to frame her answer. She took a few minutes before answering. "It was the last couple of assessments written by the old man that was supposed to do reviews of you. It was page after page of assumptions based on your outward appearance. In essence, he admitted to being afraid of you, thinking you were a menace, and probably ready to snap with no real justification. But he passed you anyway because if he declined to issue a positive filing then he would have to do follow up work with you, and the idea of enduring more than an hour once a year with you made him afraid for his life." I had to work not to laugh at her answer. It was exactly the kind of impression I wanted him to have, so it was nice to know I had the skills to pull it off. But the soft words she semi-whispered next undid me. "Where did Ranger get such a pussy to do these evals?"

I couldn't hold it in any longer, and I busted out laughing. Tears ran from my eyes, across my tats, and down my cheeks. When I quieted down and looked up at her she seemed embarrassed and said, "I'm sorry; that last part wasn't really professional was it?"

"I guess that depends on how you define professional. I agree with you, so there's no need to apologize," I quickly told her, forcing my attention back to the ball of cables I was finally winning the war with.

As I laid out the last wire I thought of something she said and asked, "Do you think I would snap with no real reason?" I had a temper, and it had gotten me into trouble enough as a kid that it both insured my rise in the gang I joined and insured I'd not live to see twenty had Ranger not intervened when he did. I liked to think I had it under better control with fifteen years of experience fighting for the good guys, but from time to time something would happen and I would see red, unable to hold back the need to make someone pay.

"No, I have no concern that you would do that." I looked at her as she spoke, trying to see if she was just saying what she thought I wanted to hear. My attention gave her permission to continue. "However with the right motivation I think you would absolutely have no issues avenging a wrong against someone you love, or protecting yourself or your family."

"I have no family," I corrected her. My father never existed as far as I was concerned. My Mother raised me until she died when I was ten. Then I moved to live with my Grandmother. She took me in until she was gunned down outside a gas station when I was fourteen. Apparently, she was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. There was no family left to take care of me, so I took care of myself. I fell in tight with a gang and they became my family. Once my activity there took the notice of the cops it was just a matter of time before I was arrested and skipped bail. If it weren't for Ranger, I'm convinced I'd still be hiding from the law…or dead.

Before I could get any further in that line of thinking Dr. Walker interrupted me to say, "Family has nothing to do with blood. Are you telling me you don't love Stephanie as dearly as you would have loved a sister? The fact that her skin is pale and yours is dark has nothing to do with how you two are related. Did your blood not boil when she was abducted last year and held by that crazy fool of a skip? Once you heard where she was being held, did you rationalize out that you needed to stay at RangeMan because she wasn't your concern – she wasn't your family?"

"No," I answered her even though I knew she didn't expect it. "I traced the location where she was being held from a cell phone signal, then I jumped in my car and sped there to kill the bastard that tried to hurt her." I realized that was probably more than I should have said. She'd probably say I wasn't able to control myself and shouldn't be allowed near people.

"Exactly," she surprised me once again. "But once you got there and Ranger pulled up at the same time, you didn't do anything foolish. You assisted the team that apprehended the skip, and then you turned to Stephanie who was scared, right?"

I shook my head yes. "She was under a small table in a ball. Despite her being a woman, she looked like a scared little girl, so I crawled under the table with her and pulled her head to my chest to hold her until she could relax. It took her a while to calm down, but I waited with her until she was ready to get out of her hiding place."

"See," she told me as though she had somehow made a point. "If you were a man too dangerous to have in the field you would have gone in, killed the skip, and left Steph alone. But you defended your family, you cared for her, and you did the honorable thing for every part of that messed up situation. You are a good man. The fact that you don't package it in a way that old men can pick up on isn't your fault, it's his."

"Does this mean I will pass my evaluation?" I asked her, trying not to care one way or the other how she answered my question.

She smiled and said, "Of course you will. This isn't a test like that. I already had an idea of the caliber of your character based on watching you work. You're meticulous; you wait for the details before forming a plan that will bring about the result you want. You are stealthily quiet, and you don't hesitate to do what must be done. As far as I'm concerned, you are exactly the kind of man I would want serving with me if I were still running missions of my own."

I couldn't help but smile at that description. There were only a handful of people who said things like that about me, and I wasn't sure how to respond.

"As if all that weren't enough to convince me when you were sharpening your knife, you weren't doing it in a threatening way. It was almost like you were just doing it to have something to do. You weren't staring me down, and when I asked you a direct question about it you answered it," she explained, filling me with relief that once again I had given the exact impression I wanted to. I hid a smile at the thought that I might be on the verge of becoming a people person.

The silence began again, and I looked back down at my work to begin the process of putting her computer back together again. "Do you think you can fix it?" She asked, leaning toward me.

"Yes, there are few things that can't be fixed enough to serve a purpose," I told her, hoping she understood I was talking about more than computers.

She watched me work, without interrupting, and when I was satisfied everything was hooked up as it should be, I hit the power switch and watched as her monitor flicked to life with the Window's logo. She smiled and put her hand on mine giving it a warm squeeze. "You did it!" She exclaimed, as though she doubted her computer could be resurrected. Before it had a chance to bother me she took her hand back, but she did it naturally, not because she realized she was touching me and was suddenly afraid that she might get hurt from the contact.

I had misjudged her. Dr. Walker, or I guess Dr. Brown now that she was married, was a remarkable woman.

I leaned against the wall, still sitting on the floor, and watched as she typed in a password and then grinned at the success of getting into our network. Not going any further than just logging in, she pushed her rolling chair back a little and looked back at me. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure," I replied, careful not to agree that she'd get an answer in reply. I might respect her now, but I wasn't a fool, and my natural caution of people had kept me alive so far, so I didn't see a reason to buck what worked.

"What do you think of Lester and Stephanie together?" She asked, once again pulling a question out of thin air that I didn't expect.

I hadn't really thought of it in those terms, so it took me a minute to compose an answer. "I think he loves her, and I like the way he lets her be free and supports her at the same time. But I didn't like the way he married her and left. Since he's come back, he's made up for it, but if he hadn't, I would have pulled him aside to let him know that wasn't how I expected him to treat her."

"You were angry because he left after they got married?" She seemed confused.

"No, he cannot help when his number is called, and he has to go with his orders. I didn't like that he hid it from us, which left Stephanie without our protection and support while he was gone. He should have manned up and announced it to us all, so we could celebrate with them. It would have made his leaving easier for him, and much easier for her," I told her, summing up why I had resented the secret when I first heard of it.

"I agree," she quickly responded before following up, "But what changed your mind so that you didn't call him out for the secrecy?"

"He did it to keep her safe. I've seen the way he looks at her now, and I know if he'd not been worried for her life, then he would have been shouting it to everyone who would listen. He did not hide it out of shame, but out of fear that it was the only way to protect her." That much had been clear to me from the moment I watched him get out of the truck and lean into her when they first arrived back at Haywood after his mission. "Besides, he makes her happy, and that's all I want for her. I would not risk messing with her heart to punish him for the past."

"Hector?" She got my attention from the picture I had in my mind of the way Stephanie would come in each morning and plop down in Lester's lap at his desk. She positively glowed and I would never admit to it, but I pulled up the camera angle that allowed me to watch them every time I was aware they were being reunited from a brief separation. Even on a grainy black and white monitor, I could see her joy. It made me feel a little lighter every time I saw it. Realizing the doctor had another question I blinked to clear the image and looked over to her.

"You are a good man," she told me with no hint of teasing. I looked down, uncomfortable with the unearned praise.

"You are a good man, and I'm very glad to have met you. I would consider myself very fortunate to be able to one day count you as a friend." I looked back to her face as she finished speaking, and I saw she was completely serious. Then she pushed her luck and asked, "So is there any reason your face doesn't have the same look of joy on it as Stephanie's?"

I had to laugh at that less than subtle prying into my private life. "Of course there is a reason."

She rolled her hand in the air trying to get me to say more. Figuring it wasn't a big secret around here I told her, "If I meet a man that looks at me the way Lester looks at Stephanie, then I will have the same expression on my face that she does."

The doc didn't miss a beat before coming back, "There's someone I'd like you to meet. You might think he's a little bland at first glance, but I have a feeling you might be able to appreciate some of his qualities in ways that others do not."

"What qualities?" I wondered aloud.

"He liked Stephanie from the moment he met her, he was willing to put himself in front of a bullet to save her, he risked his job and in many ways his own life by sharing information to help Lester figure out what was going on, and he dresses in a suit for work, but there is an air about him that tells me he puts it on like a uniform for his job, but at heart he is anything but a stiff in a neck tie." She rattled off her reasons, and I was definitely intrigued by her description.

"He travels a good deal for his new job. Right now he's based in DC, but I understand his new boss said he could move his office to wherever he wants it to be. Stephanie and I were planning on meeting him for lunch when he's in town next week and try to convince him to consider Trenton as a good hub for his travel. Why don't you join us?" She suggested. "He's good looking, single, and I'll bet he'd love the look of you from the moment we introduce you."

"I will think about it," I told her, even though at heart I knew I would go. She might not realize it, but her description of him hooked something in me. I had no interest in dating a man just like me. I didn't want someone that dark with the same history I had. I needed someone to lighten my life, but also someone who would be capable of accepting what I had been through, and what I was trying to do now.

She smiled and glanced at her watch before saying, "I'm sorry I kept you here so long."

I checked my own watch and saw I'd been with her a little over two hours and couldn't believe it.

"You aren't at all what I expected," I confessed to her.

"I hope that's a good thing," she responded hesitantly.

Standing up, I smiled at her and unconsciously checked my knives before replying, "It's a very good thing." At the door I put my hand on the knob, but before opening it I asked, "If my blades get dull, and I can't get them back as sharp as you did, can I come back to see you?"

"Hector, if there is ever something I can do, my door is always open for you," she replied kindly. I glanced back as I opened the door to leave and knew she understood I wasn't just talking about weapons, and she wasn't just offering help with a blade. I didn't know if I'd ever need to talk to someone, but if I did, I wouldn't be nervous about confiding in her.

I walked past Bobby's office and saw him typing with his right leg bouncing in a nervous jittery way. I knew the guys respected me, but even if they wouldn't admit it, they were a little afraid of what I was capable of as well. I decided to set his mind at ease about the amount of time his woman had just spent with me. "Hola," I said causing him to spin around to face the door.

"Your wife is a good woman," I told him.

He smiled appreciatively. "She really is," he readily agreed.

I started to walk away and he called out, "Thanks man."

I kept walking, unsure if he was thanking me for complimenting his wife, or for taking it easy on her as the shrink. Either way worked, and neither needed a response. I didn't plan on sharing anything that happened in her office, but I was planning on spreading the word to the guys scheduled to meet with her next that I expected them to treat her with the same respect they did Stephanie.

I was going to pull her under my protection. She might be a tough Army gal, but I had some things I could offer her that she might not realize she needed. It had been a few years since I'd met someone I was willing to step out and support, but she was one of the rare ones in the world that I wanted to watch over. She was going to do well here at RangeMan. Her skills would take her far, and I'd take care of the rest.


	2. Hal

_Plum Universe below is all courtesy of JE._

_Fredda (Rangergirl1234) you are an amazing beta and I so appreciate your willingness to handle everything I send your way._

_Amy (beancounter74) thanks for offering yourself as the real life Dr. Amy Walker. _

**Chapter 2 - Hal**

Alright soldier, man up. This is required, and you can do it. Shit, are my palms sweating? Why do I have wet palms? Why do I have to spend an hour alone with a shrink? I don't care if she is Bobby's wife and Stephanie's best friend. She's still somebody used to working with crazy people.

Of course, Hector liked her so she can't be all bad. Maybe it was the little four am wake up call from Hector that has me so out of whack. Yeah, that's got to be it – I mean having someone grab your neck when you're asleep to jolt you awake while whispering in Spanish that he'll slice your neck if you disrespect the shrink would make anybody a little on edge. I can admit to being weirded out around him because I heard Ranger comment once that Hector scared him a little too.

Shit, I've been standing outside this door for five minutes already. I'm going to have to go in before the guys on monitors see me and start betting on how long it will take me to find my balls and knock.

"Come in," her voice sounded friendly, so I gripped the door knob and in one swift motion I flung it open and walked in. The office was pretty bare. A couple of chairs around a low table, and an L shaped desk with a computer on it.

Dr. Walker was sitting at the desk looking at a file with some handwritten notes on yellow legal pad paper. I recognized it as the kind of paper the old guy used to write on during our assessments, so I assumed she was reading my last report.

She motioned for me to come in and said, "Go ahead and have a seat, I just have one more paragraph."

I walked through and had to tighten my muscles to keep from jumping when the door slammed shut behind me. I should have been more aware of my surroundings to realize it had a hydraulic closure on it.

Once I sat down I looked at the doc and saw her roll her eyes as though something on the paper in front of her was bothering her. She shut the folder and looked at the bouncing Window's logo serving as her screen saver. If I didn't know better I would say she was trying to get a grip on her temper, but I have no idea what she'd have to be angry about. I just got here. There's no way I've said or done something wrong already.

With no warning she stood up and walked over to sit in the chair across from mine. I couldn't help but notice she didn't have paper and pen in her hands. Maybe she'd already made up her mind about me and didn't see the point in making any notes.

She gave me a warm smile, and I was surprised at how much it reminded me of my sister. "Do you like to swim?" She asked out of left field.

Hector had instructed me I would answer every question she asked without trying to figure out the purpose behind them, so I opened my mouth and replied, "Yes ma'am. I was a Seal for five years, so I'm as comfortable in the water as I am on land."

"Do you still train in the water?" She followed up.

"No ma'am, RangeMan doesn't have a pool, and it's a bit of a drive to get to the ocean, so most of my training occurs in the gym downstairs. I swim when I get the chance, but I don't include it in my daily training." That seemed like a complete enough answer.

"There is an aqua center a mile from here with an Olympic sized pool. I know laps are monotonous, but it might break up the running routine," she offered.

"Yes ma'am, I've been to the facility, but it is a private club and the fees to join are pretty high," I replied, not really comfortable talking about my finances. The truth is I loved the pool when I was there once as a body guard for a visiting VIP member and would have loved to have joined, but you have to be invited and even then the fees are sky high. I was saving my money for a down payment on a house, and I couldn't justify the fees just to have a private place to swim. Besides, I wasn't exactly high class enough to get an invitation to join.

"Stephanie just got a contract to provide the security for the facility, and as a part of the payment negotiations she got a membership for all the staff of RangeMan to use the pool exclusively from five to seven am. If you want to swim again, it will be open to you if you don't mind waking up early," she offered.

"No ma'am, I don't mind the mornings. I like getting up early," I told her, feeling like I'd just gotten an early Christmas gift.

"Stephanie said Ranger is going to offer the lanes to those of you who were in the Navy first, but you have to sign up in advance to use them. I believe there are eighteen lanes and only eight of you who are Navy guys, so you should be able to have your pick of when you want to go," she explained.

I was beginning to relax a little. I could talk about swimming as long as she wanted.

"Do you like working here?" She asked out of left field.

"Yes ma'am," I quickly answered.

"Can you do me a favor?" She shifted direction once more.

I was a little nervous about that. "If it's something I can do."

She smiled again and I relaxed a little more. "Can you stop calling me ma'am. According to your file, I'm only three years older than you. And since I'm not your superior officer, the whole ma'am thing is making me nervous."

I was making her nervous? I hadn't considered that. "I'll try, but it's a habit I have trouble breaking."

"That's fair. I have a habit that I haven't been able to kick either," she said diverting her eyes down.

There were a few minutes of silence before I asked, "Smoking?"

"God no, I can't stand cigarettes," she quickly disclosed.

"I'm sorry, I was just trying to think of a habit that would be hard to kick," I apologized, not meaning to offend her.

She laughed a little, but I didn't get the feeling she was doing it to make fun of me. "No, my habit is a little more addictive than nicotine."

What was more habit forming than cigarettes? She didn't hit me as a drug user, and since she was married to Bobby I couldn't see her doing anything too far out there. He wasn't the wildest member of the core team – that honor fell to Lester. Or at least it used to. It was hard to miss the changes in him since he returned from his final mission. He was a lot calmer than he used to be. And even though he still threw out jokes faster than I could keep up with them, it was obvious being married to Stephanie had grounded him in a good way.

Before I could think about that anymore the doctor confessed what her habit was. "Ice cream is my addiction. I just love the flavors and the cold as it melts on my tongue. I know it's not good for me, and I have to exercise every morning to undo the damage I did to my body the night before by curling up with a pint of my favorite flavor, but I still find myself opening the freezer door with no remorse."

I laughed at her confession and then said, "Have you been to Tredwells on Maple Street?"

"No, what's that?" She seemed interested.

"It's a family owned ice cream shop. I just found it last summer, and it's only open from April to October, but they change the flavors every day and it's really good. I treated myself to a cone after a rough day or two, and everything I tried was great." I looked down when I was finished talking not wanting to see her judgment of my confession that my stress reliever was ice cream instead of some the guys' more typical options.

"I can't think of a better way to handle a rough day than with something frozen and delicious," she replied with no hint of laughter. I looked up and her face seemed genuine. Then she asked the question I was hoping she wouldn't ask. "Can you tell me why you go for ice cream instead of heading to a bar like most of the guys here?"

I could feel my cheeks getting warm, and knew I was blushing. I always hated when I did that, but I knew there was nothing I could do to fight it, so I hoped she would ignore it too. Now, how did I answer her question? "Well, I don't really like the taste of a lot of hard liquor. I mean, I don't mind a beer with the guys to unwind, but shots and most of the hard core drinks just don't taste good to me, so I've never really thought of that as an approach to relax from a hard day."

"That was a great answer," she told me, putting my mind at ease.

There were a few moments of silence before it began to get to me so I said, "This isn't really what I was expecting."

"Let me guess, you thought I'd be sitting here with a pad on my lap, furiously making notes, judging all your answers to question about your childhood or missions you've been on." She said in a dry voice.

"Actually, yeah, that's exactly what I thought would be happening now," I admitted, causing her to laugh a little.

"That's not my style," she replied. "I've been watching you for a couple of weeks, and I don't need to poke and prod you for weak places in your armor. You handle every assignment with poise, and the one time something got royally screwed up, you handled that well. I've not seen you lose your temper, but I have seen you mad. That's enough to convince me you aren't some loose canon that is at risk for coming in and losing touch with the reality of who your friends are."

Wow, I didn't realize she'd been watching us while she'd been around lately. "Wait," something she said just struck me. "You said you'd seen me mad, but I hadn't lost my temper. Aren't they one in the same?"

"Not even close," she replied seriously. "Everyone gets mad; we don't always get our way, nor do the things we think should happen always occur. When that skip managed to hit Stephanie last week when you were in the bar during the distraction, I know you were furious about it because you didn't get there in time to stop it. You did get to the skip immediately before he could get in another blow, and you had him in cuffs right away. It's my understanding that you and Ram got him to the cop shop without further incident, and then you went to the gym and spent an hour with a punching bag. After that, you turned in and were fine the next morning."

"I wouldn't say the skip got the station without incident. He did have a couple of bruises near his kidneys, and I'm pretty sure the black eye was my fault," I felt the need to correct her from thinking we just took him cleanly to the cops. I mean, there was an unspoken rule that if Stephanie got hurt on a distraction that we were allowed to teach the skip a lesson before dropping him off. And I, for one, considered myself to be a very good teacher.

"I would classify that a clean drop off. No one had to call Bobby to put the skip back together before he could be presented to law enforcement. A few blows to the face and back is just teaching him a lesson, right?" She seemed to know us pretty well, so I just nodded that she was right.

"If you'd beaten him to a pulp I would be worried because it would mean when you get mad you have no control. On the flip side, if you had gone cold and disappeared to your room I would have a few questions about that too because our bodies need a way to get rid of the adrenaline that builds up when we get pissed off. You took care of yours in a healthy way and the next morning, if I'm not mistaken, you brought Stephanie a doughnut, so you were obviously capable of being around people safely." She really was watching us.

"The doughnut was an apology," I told her.

"It was a way of showing Stephanie you were sorry about what happened. Hopefully, you listened to her when she explained the skip getting a blow to her wasn't your fault. While I know she appreciated the pastry, no apology was needed." Those were nearly the same words Steph had used. I still felt like I needed to do something, so in retrospect I wouldn't have skipped the breakfast treat.

"Anyway," Dr. Walker continued, "The way I see it is you are quiet, but you're solid. You've got a handle on your emotions in a healthy way, so I see nothing to be worried about. This was really just a chance for me to get to know you better."

I smiled at her last comment. "Will you tell me what got you worked up when I first came in? You didn't look too happy about what you were reading in that folder."

She smiled at me. "The guy that did the evaluation last year was an idiot. He jumped to the conclusion that because you are quiet and seemed to be uncomfortable around him that you had issues with authority and were probably not well suited for the job. But he doubted you would have the initiative to act out in a dangerous way, therefore he wasn't going to alert your supervisors to his concerns about your performance."

Way to knock the wind out of someone's sails. I didn't realize that because I was quiet I was automatically considered a pussy.

She didn't seem to notice my internal dialogue because she barreled on, picking up some steam as she talked. "I mean, what an obvious display of a god complex in a shrink. To self inflate himself enough to honestly believe that you would considered him to have any authority. Besides, those comments were written by a man whose only combat experience was watching a fight that broke out at his base. I can't believe Ranger paid that jerk to make up such bullshit about you guys. I could tell from the first staff meeting I sat in on that you respected authority, you didn't fear it. I could also tell from your take down notes that you have no issue taking care of business when it's called for. That one - two combination would make you exactly the kind of guy I would have wanted on my team when I was leading missions. The fact that he couldn't recognize that is a telling flaw in his skills in this profession, not an accurate marker of your abilities."

Her jaw was flexing slightly from side to side and her hand was touching a scar on her neck. I'd heard from some of the guys it had something to do with her late husband who died on a mission. She seemed to rub it when she was thinking hard or angry about some injustice. I guess I should take it as a compliment.

I liked the way she described me and wondered if it was true or if the notes from the guy last year painted a more accurate picture. I didn't feel like the old guy got me right, and I definitely preferred her version to his.

"For the record, I would have been proud to serve under you," I told her, hoping she understood I was talking about in a mission capacity and not under her as in a sexual position. Oh shit, if Bobby thought I was propositioning his wife, he'd kick my ass and make it look like I had a medical condition. I could feel the heat blazing in my cheeks once again but couldn't begin to know how to explain why I was embarrassed.

She chuckled and said, "Relax soldier, I know exactly what you meant. There will be no fall from out from a misinterpretation."

I could help but let out a long breath over that comment.

"I'm going to break the confidentiality I usually keep when people talk to me to let you know something, Hal," she lost all hint of joking when she said that.

"What?" I wondered what she was about to say, and if I should let her continue.

"The guys like you. They may pick on you for being a little quiet, or for that unfortunate stun gun incident a couple years ago, but at heart they respect your skills, and they like having you on the team. You don't need to change to fit in here. You have a place, and the guys like the way you fill it out just as you are." She looked me in the eye as she spoke, as though she was trying to be sure I was getting the message loud and clear.

I had to admit I'd always wondered if the guys wished I was more outgoing. I knew when it was time to work I always pulled my weight, but when the guys went out I didn't tend to participate in their more rambunctious pursuits. "Thanks," I finally said quietly. I didn't know what else to say but her words meant a lot to me.

Dr. Walker looked at her watch and then smiled, "Okay, we've got twenty minutes left, so I have the perfect suggestion of how to pass the time."

"Is this where you start asking about my childhood?" I asked as a joke.

She got it and laughed before standing up and walking to her desk to open a drawer. "If you tell anyone I have this here, I'll hunt you down when you're asleep and wax off your eyebrows. Are we clear?"

Her tone was so reminiscent of my days in the Navy, I couldn't help myself. "Ma'am, yes ma'am."

"Smartass," she said under her breath while pulling out a box from the large drawer in her desk.

She held it to her side as she walked back to where I was sitting so I couldn't tell what she was bringing over. When she sat it down I couldn't help but smile. "Battleship?" I asked in disbelief. "To pass the time you want me to kick your ass in Battleship?"

She rolled her eyes in a perfect imitation of Stephanie. "No, I want you take losing like a man as I sink your fleet. I love this game, but it's not one of Bobby's favorites, so I have to find someone to play that will present more of a challenge. I'm hoping since you were a Navy guy you might know your way around a destroyer."

She liked to talk junk, but this was the kind of annual evaluation I was all for. This was one of my favorite games of all time. Strategy plus logic was a good time, and I'd never lost a game I'd played of it.

An hour later she had sunk the last ship in my fleet, so I had to admit to defeat. I also had to admit she wasn't like any psychiatrist I'd ever met. She was cool and fun to hang out with. By the time we were done I'd told her all about my sister and growing up on Lake Michigan. She'd shared a few funny stories of missions she'd been on including some Seals and it turns out I knew one of them. He was my roommate for basic recruit training command, so we were able to swap stories for a while. By the time we put the game away I realized I'd given her all the information the old guy was trying to get out of me, but I refused to share. With her it was just like hanging out. Strangely, it also felt good to talk about some of the stuff with my family. I've always been quiet, and in a family of extroverts, I felt out of place. Talking to her about it gave me some perspective to feel a little better about being the odd man out at home.

She put the game away and I stood up to leave, figuring we were done. As I passed by her desk she said, "Hal, I hope you know if you ever want to talk about something I'm here, and I'm more than willing to help."

"Thanks," I told her, appreciating the comment.

"And if you even want to have your ass handed to you by a girl again, stop by for that too." I couldn't help but bust out laughing over that comment.

"I'm going to want a rematch, and I don't think you'll be singing songs of victory the next time," I taunted opening the door to leave.

"Thanks Dr. Walker," I called out as I left.

When I passed by Bobby's office his door was open and he was on the floor repacking the first aid kits we keep in all the vehicles.

I decided to step outside my comfort zone and say something I usually wouldn't dare. "Hey Bobby," I said in his doorway.

He looked up and smiled, "What's up man?"

"I just left my eval with the doc," I told him and watched his face get serious. I don't know if he thought I was going to say something critical or insensitive, so I jumped in to finish the thought before his imagination got away from him.

"She's great," I blurted out without thinking. "I mean, for the first time ever it felt like that had a purpose."

"Thanks man," he smiled once more. "She is a good woman."

Then I decided to take a page from Hector's book and said, "I don't think I need to tell you this, but for some reason I think I have to. If you hurt her…"

I couldn't finish the thought because he lifted his hands in a surrender gesture and interrupted me. "I get it, and I appreciate the thought. But really, if you spend much time with Amy you learn pretty quickly that if you hurt her, she'll kick your ass herself."

"I figured that was the case, but I think there would be a line waiting for the leftovers once she's done," I warned him before turning and walking to the stairs to go back up to my cubicle.

Strangely, I felt like a game of Battleship was all it took to make a friend and get a little confidence about being around the guys. I certainly didn't expect my evaluation to work like that, but I was already looking forward to the next one.


	3. Ranger

_JE gets the credit for the Plum universe I am borrowing for this story._

_Fredda (Rangergirl1234) you are an amazing beta with the ability to not only correct all my errors, but keep me encouraged enough to continue typing despite them._

_Amy (beancounter74) thanks so much for letting me vent to you as the real life Dr. Amy Walker._

**Chapter 3 – Ranger**

Guilt was a strange thing. I was dead set against having Dr. Walker run the annual evaluations at RangeMan until she saved my life. I felt like I owed her, and when Stephanie pointed out just how hard she fought for me I had no choice but to give in and bring her on part time. This is why I didn't like being in people's debt; it made you do stupid things.

I wasn't opposed to her being here because I questioned her skills. If anything, I was able to tell the first time I met her she was sharp. She was the rare combination of a brilliant mind with a soldier's skills packaged in a feminine body. She reminded me so damn much of Stephanie that I thought it was eerie. They weren't physically all that similar, but the way they could process information with great speed and how they knew how to work with people was damn near awe inspiring.

Ironically, it was Dr. Walker's ability to help Lester that scared the shit out of me. There were things in Lester's past that I knew he liked to keep locked away. There are some horrors that can't be dealt with, they just have to be boxed up and hidden. When Lester said she didn't let him hide from his memories and had the ability to call him on his deflections and evasions, I knew I didn't want to be in a room alone with her. I believed she was just good enough to get under my skin, and there were many reasons I didn't like to let people get too close.

Hell, I was in love with Stephanie and still I pushed her away. As much as I admired Stephanie's mind and her skills in reading people, I could tell Dr. Walker had even more advanced techniques and I couldn't deny the time she'd spent in the minds of soldiers would give her a huge advantage in telling when I was hiding or shutting down.

I needed to get through the next hour using whatever tools I had available to me and hope like hell I could keep her off the subject of my past for sixty minutes. That thought had me quickly setting the alarm on my watch for 0900 so that there was no chance of her trying to go over our allotted time.

I knew she'd already done a few assessments, and most of the guys seemed to genuinely like her. Hell, Hal even sent me an e-mail saying for the first time ever he felt like talking to a shrink wasn't a waste of his time, and he was glad I ditched the old guy that RangeMan had been using. Hector seemed to have been won over as he was standing outside the stairwell when I exited the gym this morning to tell me that he expected me let the doctor do her job when I met with her. I didn't give him a response; I don't think he expected one. How she won Hector over was a mystery to me. But I had to respect the fact that she seemed to. The only other person that I could tell Hector actually liked was Stephanie, so it was telling that he was apparently offering Dr. Walker the same protection he offered to my Babe.

Before I could get lost thinking of Stephanie, the door to the office opened and Dr. Walker came in with her nose buried in a folder filled with yellow legal paper. I guess reading while walking was a skill they taught you in medical school. I was a little surprised when she shut the folder abruptly and pinched the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger, as though trying to get something out of her head that she didn't want in there.

I watched her take a few deep breaths and then she looked up and asked a question I wasn't expecting. "Why did you hire that idiot to do the annual evaluations for the guys?"

I couldn't help but smile a little; it was the exact kind of question I would have anticipated Stephanie asking. I decided to respond to it the same way I would Steph. "Because he was available, approved by the government, and didn't feel the need to get into everyone's business in order to certify everyone for the field."

"Did you ever read the reports he wrote?" She asked with a bit of fire in her eyes. It was like watching the green in them begin to glow.

"No, I only scanned the summary document that went to the feds. The rest I locked up in the cabinet you now have access to," I calmly explained.

"So you never read what he thought about you?" She pushed a little more.

"I didn't need to. All that mattered was what he told Uncle Sam. As long as that was what I needed it to be, his ramblings were of no importance," I stated as I explained my position. Honestly, I didn't give a shit what he thought. I knew I intimidated the fire out of him, so I didn't figure he had much nice to say. And I respected my men enough to give them the same level of privacy. As long as they passed, nothing he said would change my opinion of them, so I refused to read his drivel.

"I can respect you not getting into the particulars. But I do find it amusing that he hasn't had a single good thing to say about any of the staff I've talked to so far. You, he seemed to think had a God complex, that you rule by simple decree assuming all your men will bow to your wishes and obey without question. He believes it will one day cost you your life as you will underestimate the motivations of the people around you and one of them will betray you. He also thinks you are incapable of caring about people because you have effectively shut down all your emotions." She rattled off the report she had just read.

"What do you think?" I turned the tables on her, trying to keep the satisfaction I was feeling at how easy it was to do.

"I think your emotions run deeper than anyone would ever guess because you have perfected your blank face. But I know from experience that a blank face and an empty heart aren't the same thing," she ventured to assume. She couldn't be more right about that, I had long ago learned to cover what I was really feeling by pretending I felt nothing.

"And what about me being God?" I pushed, trying to keep her talking so there wouldn't be time for her to ask me anything.

"I think that is somewhat true of any person that has ever commanded a unit, me included," she surprised me with that confession. "If you can't trust the guys to follow your orders you can't accomplish anything. But I have never seen you as the type of guy that is so impressed with yourself that you don't take your own safety seriously. I mean, did the old guy ever observe how RangeMan operates?"

"I never gave him access to the main floor, and he never asked for it. He didn't seem to think how we operated was relevant to discovering our mental stability," I relayed his exact words to Dr. Walker.

"Jackass," she mumbled under her breath. I couldn't help but laugh at that. She seemed a little embarrassed that she'd spoken aloud and relieved that I responded the way I did to her opinion of her predecessor.

I guess she felt the need to explain her word choice. "I just don't think you can draw an accurate opinion of anyone based on one hour. I mean, seeing you sitting here with a blank face and one word responses to questions would make me draw less than flattering opinions. But seeing you in a team meeting where the men who have served under you for years treat you with the utmost respect opens the possibility that they follow you because you are just that good, not because they are ignorant or you are a dictator. Context is key to making a valid judgment."

"Agreed," I replied, understanding what she meant.

"Can I ask you something totally off the record?" She blurted out.

"You can ask, but I can't guarantee an answer," I told her, wary of what she wanted to know.

"What's with all the salads?" she asked with a smile.

That was easy enough to answer honestly. "My father and grandfather were both diabetics, which increases the likelihood that I would be too. That, plus I've been in so many situations where my fitness level has saved my life that I'm motivated to keep my chances of survival as high as possible."

"Thanks," she replied as though she didn't really expect an answer. "Do you like chess?" She followed up.

"The game?" I clarified. Lester had warned me she liked to ask random questions. He thought it was to catch someone so off guard that they would answer without thinking it through, but this was well beyond what I expected.

"Yes, the game," she replied getting up and going to her desk. She opened the large drawer at the bottom and pulled out a box that I assumed contained a chess set.

I loved the game, the combination of strategy and patience was ideally suited to my skills and temperament, but not many of the guys liked to play it. She was setting up the pieces without waiting for an answer, so I turned the board and smiled at her. "I'll take black."

She rolled her eyes and replied, "Big shock there."

We played in silence for several minutes. It was obvious she was good at this game, as I could almost see the gears moving in her head as her eyes moved across the pieces planning out future moves and the consequences of proposed moves. It was nice to have a formidable opponent for a change.

After her fourth move she tried to distract me by asking, "So now that Lester has married Stephanie, are you giving up your role as Henry Higgins?"

I wanted to show her that I was just as capable of multi-tasking, and it wouldn't break my focus to talk and strategize, so I replied, "Stephanie knows I'll always be here for her. If she needs my help all she has to do is ask."

"Does she? I mean, have you said that to her?" She pushed, moving her pawn in the path of my knight making me wonder what she was planning.

"I don't need to say it to her. It was the way it always was, and I haven't said anything to tell her that wasn't the case now. It's a standing order which hasn't been rescinded," I explained.

"A standing order to a civilian who isn't familiar with the term isn't the same thing as a clearly defined directive," she disagreed.

I hadn't thought that Steph would assume I wasn't interested in working with her. I thought I'd been pretty good in how I had supported her as the wife of my cousin. I got through the first meeting in front of the guys by hugging them both and offering my public congratulations. That on top of the fact that I never called Lester to the mats for sneaking off with her should be evidence enough that I was putting her happiness above my own. "That doesn't matter; Stephanie knows if she needs me I'm there."

"I'm sure you're right. The fact that you've been ignoring her completely lately probably hasn't made her second guess your allegiance," she pushed again.

"I haven't been avoiding her," I quickly commented. Wait, have I been avoiding her? I know I've been watching her trackers just as often, and I've reviewed all the files Vinnie wanted to give her before Connie released them. I've been just as protective as I always was.

"You know her car blew up last week, right?" Dr. Walker pointed out.

"Yes, I know her husband was on site within moments of the alert on his phone," I told her.

"Your tracker had you one block away. You could have been there even quicker to check on her. Why didn't you go?" That was a good question. I remember the text on my phone and the brief moment where my heart rate jumped into double time as I worried that this might be the day where her luck had finally run out. I had my hand on my keys ready to drive over, but in the end I put them back in my pocket, figuring if I went there I would do what I always did. I'd pull her to me to assure myself that she was okay. Then Lester would arrive and take her from my arms because as her husband he was the one that deserved that assurance. I didn't want to have to watch him take her from me again. I was strong, but I wasn't stupid. There were some things I just didn't need to relive on a regular basis. Stephanie had what I always wanted for her – a solid marriage to a good man. What I hadn't planned on was how hard it would be to see her so happy and know it was because of someone else.

I realized Dr. Walker was no longer looking at the board but staring straight at me expecting a response. "I find it easier to avoid situations where I have to see her getting all her needs met by my cousin."

"It didn't bother you when she was with Morelli," she said taking my knight with her bishop. How the hell did I miss that move?

"Morelli wasn't capable of meeting half her needs," I pointed out. "He was only as much of a threat as I allowed him to be."

"A threat to what?" She asked as I picked up her offending bishop. Then it hit me what she was asking and how much I already disclosed. I think I underestimated her skills.

Shit, I didn't want to get into this, but refusing to answer only made it more obvious that I had something to hide. Oh, what the hell, these sessions were confidential and I knew enough about Dr. Walker to know that she understood how to keep her mouth shut when it was called for. "A threat to me and what I had with Stephanie." I knew when she was with Joe that she would always need me because he didn't understand her. So even though I couldn't give her everything she needed, I knew she still had a place in her heart that only I was filling.

"So when she was with Morelli you had something with her, but now that she's with Lester you don't?" She didn't understand what I was trying to say.

"No, when she was with Morelli she needed me," I told her, hoping she'd let it go.

"And you believe that now that she is married to Lester she no longer needs you. So your impression of her is that she uses people and then tosses them once they've served their purpose?" Damn it, I didn't want to have this conversation.

If it were just me I'd let her believe that, but I couldn't allow her to think I thought so little of Stephanie. "No, of course not. But the things I did for Stephanie when she was with Morelli are all things that Lester is capable of doing for her. If I don't have a reason to be around her then it's hard to see her with him."

"It hurts?" She guessed. Unfortunately, she was dead on, but I'd never admit to it.

"It's just hard, let's leave it at that," I ventured to end this topic.

"Then why don't you ask her to lunch, have her do a surveillance shift with you, or even take it upon yourself to do some of her training? You miss being around her, and there is no reason for you to ostracize yourself." It didn't sound like a lecture, yet I felt like she should be shaking her finger in my face. I had never considered doing any of things. For some reason I was struggling with my relationship with Stephanie. I wanted her in my life, yet when I had the chance to have her I pushed her away. Now that Lester had her, I was able to see how foolish I had been, and every time they were together it was a sappy reminder of the chance I had but threw away. My reasons seemed perfectly valid at the time, but in hindsight I wasn't so sure they were.

"I miss her," I admitted, moving my remaining knight, but no longer feeling as interested in the game.

"Can I be blunt?" She asked, making me smile.

"Can you not be blunt?" I challenged her back.

After a failed attempt to not roll her eyes at my joke she started talking. "You are one of the finest soldiers I've ever come across. You have sacrificed yourself for this country time and time again, but I think that mindset of sacrifice has begun to take over how you approach life. You have the finest things money can buy surrounding you, but I don't think you really care about the material stuff. You want someone to share it with, yet you've convinced yourself you can't open up to another person out of this misguided sense that you would either put them at risk or they couldn't accept the whole package – the good with the bad."

She was so close to the truth it was hard to hide the wince at her words. "I think you knew Stephanie wasn't the right woman for you long term, but there was no denying the connection. At the time what she needed was all you were capable of providing so your relationship was easy. Now she's married someone else, but she still wants your friendship. I think it's time for you to entertain the idea that there may be a woman who could be everything you need in a partner. That woman wouldn't be a threat to the connection and friendship you have with Stephanie, and would accept your life and participate in it as an equal. It's insulting to me if you think women aren't capable of fighting just as well as the men they love."

I looked at her and had to agree that she was in many ways suited to be Bobby's wife. She was capable of taking care of herself, yet she chose to fight by Bobby's side instead of taking over his life. They were probably the best example I'd ever seen of true life partners in how their interests and professions overlapped. Even in light of that, they didn't only spend time with each other. Amy had made friends in Trenton, and Bobby still hung out with the guys. I was smart enough to realize there weren't women like Dr. Walker walking around everywhere so thinking I'd find that for myself was pretty unlikely. I'd already lost my chance with Stephanie; how many times could lightening strike? Besides how could any woman compete with the curly haired brunette that came to me in my dreams? Sometimes I thought my regrets of letting her slip away were like a ghost constantly haunting me, but not visible to anyone else.

I must have been too quiet because she spoke again. "You did an honorable thing in seeing the potential in Stephanie that other people chose to overlook. You gave her a chance and supported her unconditionally. You should be so proud of what she is doing with her life right now and the role you played. But you don't have to sit on the sidelines just because she's married. You can still be a part of her life, and one day you can open yourself up to find a woman that can fit into the parts of your life that you are able to share."

I knew what she was saying was right, but moving on with that knowledge was easier said than done. I moved my queen out of her sights and then said, "Can't you ask me really difficult questions about missions I've been on?"

Dr. Walker laughed. "Why would I need to do that? I can imagine you've seen and endured just about anything. I can guess the scars you carry on your body, but I can see you've obviously found a way of coping with everything that's been thrown at you. I mean, you are the most disciplined person I've ever met, so you don't go into a situation without a plan, and you don't lose control when you are in danger. Obviously, you are capable of doing this job, and doing it well. The details in your past missions can stay in your past because you don't need to dig through them to know what to do with them. Some people don't have that ability and they are the ones I worry about. You are perfectly fine to keep your secrets."

Damn, if I'd known she felt that way I might have agreed to bring her on as soon as Bobby mentioned it the first time. My watch alarmed, and I shut it off without a second thought.

I moved my king a single space to the right to avoid her advancing knight then asked, "So based on your observations is there anyone on the team you are worried about?"

She sat back and looked at me as though she were working on a complex math equation. Finally she answered, "There are a couple of the guys that I will need to use this time with to understand their behavior. Based on those discussions I can let you know what concerns I might have then."

"Fair enough," I replied, putting her queen in check.

She smiled as soon as I said it and then picked up her remaining bishop and said the word I'd never heard spoken to me when playing this game. "Checkmate."

I sat back and looked at the board. How did she beat me? No one ever beats me at this game.

"Try not to look so surprised," she teased. "I mean, you're just a man, you aren't a superhero incapable of defeat."

"I know," I replied quickly. At least in theory I knew. "But I like being able to maintain the image that I might be just a little bit of a superhero." I was Stephanie's Batman after all.

"You're a hero, Ranger. That's more than most people are able to claim. More than that, you're a good and honorable man in a league of your own." I felt a little better hearing her words of praise because I'd spent enough time with her to know that she didn't hand out compliments like candy. They were usually reserved for deserving moments.

Then she ruined the moment by adding, "However, you are in a rapidly growing group of people who have fallen to me in chess."

"I'm going to want a rematch when you aren't trying to split my focus by asking me questions," I said, pretending to be irritated about the loss.

"Anytime you want to play again, I'll have the board ready and waiting, but I never play without talking, so if you come back down here I'll assume it's consent for me to get back in your head," she warned me. I wanted to think she was joking, but there was no smile on her face.

I stood up to walk out, surprised that I hadn't fled the moment my watch alarmed. This wasn't what I was expected in both good and bad ways. I felt like she had gotten through my defenses and into my head in a way that no one else had ever done. But the way she went about it wasn't pushy or offensive, so that I felt like I had gotten something out of the time with her. I wasn't entirely sure what to do about all of it, but I knew I was going to call Lester to see if I could ask Stephanie to lunch as just the two of us. I'd missed her, and Dr. Walker was right that I didn't need to stay away. We had been friends for years, and that wasn't going to disappear just because she'd married a worthy man. The rest of her advice I'd have to think about another time.

I opened the door and then turned back to say, "I'm glad you're here. If there is anything I can do to support what you're trying to do for the guys, just let me know."

She smiled and thanked me, which I took as my dismissal. I took a few steps and saw Bobby cleaning the exam table he'd used this morning to stitch up Ram where he'd been stabbed by a skip before apprehending him. "Brown," I said as my usual greeting.

"Boss," he replied with a happy smile.

"You're wife…" I started not sure how to finish the sentence.

Bobby's face fell, probably out of worry that I was going to complain about the time I'd just spent with her.

"She's good at what she does. I think it will help the guys a lot to have her here. Thanks for suggesting we bring her on," I told him, holding back my laugher at his surprise to hear me thanking him and complimenting his woman.

I walked away before he could reply and hit the stairs a little lighter than when I came down here. If talking to her made this much of a difference, I might consider switching the organization to bi-annual reviews. I think having a chance to get some perspective was a good thing for us.

And if anybody complained about it, I'd just refer them to the evaluation department chairperson to take their complaint. I'm sure Hector would love to have a new job title.


	4. Binkie

_The Plum universe below is all credited to JE._

_Fredda (Rangergirl1234) thank you so much for your speedy work as the beta on this story._

_Amy (beancounter74) I really don't have the words to thank you for your friendship and for sharing yourself as the basis for Dr. Walker below._

**Chapter 4 - Binkie**

_A/N: This chapter isn't like the ones before it and has a few images that aren't graphic, but are still difficult. I figured I should warn you in advance. Not every guy at RangeMan is a simple open and shut evaluation and I figured it was only fair to get a small glimpse of some of what they have endured._

"So, Binkie…, really is that what you want me to call you?" Dr. Walker asked, sitting down in the chair across from me in her office.

"No ma'am, the guys call me that as a carry over from my Army days, but my real name is Brian. I'd really prefer to go by that," I told her, realizing it was the first time anyone had ever asked me what I wanted to be called. Growing up I was just Brian, and from day one in the Army I was Binkie. My opinion or desire never seemed to matter.

"Alright then, Brian it is," she agreed. "So this is your first assessment since you've been at RangeMan, which means I don't have any notes to go off of. And since you were on vacation last week, I wasn't able to watch you in action to get any initial observations, so I'm flying blind here."

I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. Some of the guys had told me Dr. Walker was good, and I needed to take this time with her seriously because I needed a positive report from her in order to continue working here. Then Hector cornered me in the break room this morning and threatened to bust my kneecap if I disrespected her in any way. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to act, but the thought of Hector coming after me if I screwed something up had me seriously second guessing every answer I give her.

"Where did you go on vacation?" She asked. It was a harmless enough question, but I really didn't want to answer it.

"Umm," I started sounding like a complete idiot. "I'd rather not talk about my vacation, if that's alright. I mean, it was personal, and it was time completely away from work."

Her eyes narrowed slightly, and she paused before saying, "Fair enough, then how about you tell me what brought you to RangeMan."

Now that I could mostly answer. "I was ready to get out of the Army, and my CO mentioned this place in New Jersey that did security work and employed primarily military guys that he thought I should check out. I told him I would be interested in learning more about it, so he contacted Ranger and the rest is history."

"Did you see yourself in security?" She followed up.

"No ma'am, I figured I'd be in the Army until I died." I grimaced at how that must have sounded and practically held my breath with the hope that she'd move on to another line of questions.

"Why aren't you still in the Army?" Of course, she asked that, I've never been a lucky guy.

"I got injured on my last tour and figured I should get out when it was offered to me, especially when there was something like this for me to move on to. It's not the Army, but it's close enough that I'm comfortable." Hopefully that would finish this off.

"What was the cause of your injury?" She wasn't going to let this go. She had a look in her eye like my mom used to get when she knew I was holding something back from her. I never knew how she could tell when I was being secretive, but once she picked up on it there was no stopping her until she got the whole truth from me.

"A roadside landmine took out the hummer I was riding in. I was the only person that survived the explosion, but it took three surgeries to get my left arm and leg back to a functional level. It will never be normal, but I'm still in great shape." Shit, there was no way she was going to pass me now. I practically admitted to being an invalid.

"I'm sure if you're on the regular rotation and working with all the guys, that you are more than up to the physical demands of the job," she assured me, helping me to relax a little. "Were you going to a patrol or coming back from one when the explosion happened?" Damn, why wouldn't she let this go?

"We were coming back to make our report of what we'd discovered in the dessert in Iraq on our patrol," I told her, hoping I could hide behind the classified nature of my job.

The doctor wrapped her arms in front of her stomach and leaned forward. There was nothing threatening about the posture, but at the same time it told me what she was about to say was important. "Brian, I have clearance a lot higher than yours. I've been working with soldiers who have seen atrocities so horrid they aren't able to function in normal society. Whatever happened, you are going to have to talk about it. You are hiding something, and I want you to understand anything you say to me goes no further than this room. I'm not taking notes, and I'm not making judgments, but I am here to make a determination if you are capable of handling the stress of this job on top of what you've already been through. If you can't open up to me a little more, then I'm going to have to guess, and my imagination is pretty out there, so neither of us want that to happen." She paused briefly and then summed it, "Now spill it and tell me the whole story of what happened."

Well this was it. I always prided myself on being tough as nails, and this was the first chance I had to prove it. I could tell her about this without getting hooked back into the nightmare of it. I just had to report the details without letting the images flood my mind. I could picture Stephanie in the outfit she wore to the distraction last night. Yea, that would work, if it weren't for the fact that dress was so hot I'd have to explain why talking about the shit I saw on tour was giving me a major boner in my cargos.

"You need to start talking here Brian," she brought me back to reality when her tone shifted from the laid back doctor to something a little more commanding. For the first time ever I could picture her in the Army. Somebody said she outranked everybody here but Ranger. I didn't think I should push to see if she could throw around that kind of command too.

I lifted my hand and ran it over my buzz cut. "My squadron was sent to a deserted village to check out reports we'd gotten off of robotic drones that showed munitions were being stored there. It made no sense because it was miles from any place that had any pockets of what we considered to be insurgents, and it was so remote that if they were storing firepower there it was completely unprotected, so it would be simple to just load up on our trucks and take it from them."

I remembered from the moment we were given the assignment I wondered what in the hell we were walking into. She didn't push me to keep talking, but I could tell from her expression that Dr. Walker intended for me to keep going. "We took the hour long drive to the remote village, and at first glance on the drive through it was deserted like we thought. We climbed out of the patrol cars and went in search of the possible weapons when I first heard something."

There was a moment of silence where I tried to picture anything other than the scene I was going to have to describe next. Dr. Walker finally said, "What did you find when you followed the sound?"

Thank God I didn't have to describe the sound to her because then she would definitely think I was nuts. When I first heard it, I was positive it was a kitten. My sisters always had cats, and there was a distinctive sound the young ones made when they were hungry and afraid. This sound was identical to the one the animals made. "The guys followed me as we walked in the direction I thought I heard activity, and we zeroed in on a building with no windows. It was a metal storage shed behind a small house."

"What was inside?" She pushed me quietly.

"We had to break the door down to get in, and when we stormed in there were boxes of munitions. A huge stockpile of guns, grenades, rockets, and the makings for I don't know how many bombs," I reported, wondering if she would drop it now.

"So what made the sound you heard?" Of course she wasn't letting me stop there.

"Chained to each section of the stored weapons were young children. They were dirty, scared, crying, and sitting in their own filth. I looked at their faces, doubtful any of them would be old enough to tell us what was going on, but from the back there was a single girl who was older than the others, and she began to talk very calmly." I remembered the look of determination on her face and how steady her voice was, despite the tears that had dried on her face where she too had been upset at some point.

"One of the guys in our unit translated and told us that she said they were chained to the weapons and they rigged it so that we couldn't cut them loose without the trip wires on them being detonated and setting off a chain reaction explosion. Our explosives guy confirmed he'd never seen triggers that complicated on a body harness. He figured if the kids moved too much they might go off, and there was nothing he was comfortable trying without risking all of us as well. They required a physical key to disarm them, and without that there was no safe way to get them off. The girl told us they were fed every morning, and they were told they were there to keep the Americans from taking the supplies in the building. We asked if they knew when they were going to be released and she said she overheard them yesterday say that in two days they were coming for everything in order to mount an offensive in the hills against our battalion. She cried when she said the soldier said the kids would all be shot when they had finished serving their purpose." I could still see that single tear running down the dirt smeared on her face, leaving a thin trail of mud in its wake.

"You were carrying this intel back to your base?" She asked, letting me skip over where we promised the kids we would go back and get some help, and that we would return to save them. I looked in that girls eyes and promised to save her. She probably didn't understand what I was saying, but it certainly looked like she believed me.

"On the way back, I used the secure satellite phone to call in the information. I asked my CO what we were going to do. He hesitated, and then said because of the short window there wasn't much we could do. He was going to call an air strike to take out the warehouse in order to keep the rebels from getting their hands on the weapons that would undoubtedly be used against us. I argued that there had to be a way to save the kids, but he wasn't convinced, and he felt like it was too great a risk that the terrorists would return for the weapons while we were there. He said if we engaged them in a shootout or a direct offensive, there was no way to guarantee we would come out on top," I told her, trying to hold back my anger as I reported what he said.

She didn't push me for anything more, but I was far enough into my story that I didn't stop. "I told the guys to pick up the pace in the hope that I could talk him out of the air strike in person better than I could on the phone. It was thirty minutes later that the world around me exploded and I was knocked out. By the time I came to in the hospital the strike was over. We'd taken out the enemy weapons and eight children had lost their lives."

"Did you get out because of the damage to your body or to your heart from the thought that you failed that girl?" Dr. Walker didn't pull her punches.

"Both," I quickly answered and then I revised it to say, "My body needed a lot of work, and I didn't want to put anyone at risk if I wasn't a hundred percent in the field. But the truth is after that happened, every time I slept I would see her face. I didn't want to have to explain the image of that single tear going down her cheek in my dreams right before she was killed by a bomb covered with the American flag. Until I could get rid of that nightmare, I knew I couldn't go back. So when I was given the chance to get out because of my injuries, I took it." The truth was it was a coward's retirement and I hated that I gave up, but I didn't think I had another choice at the time.

"Do you think your CO was wrong to take out the storehouse?" She followed up.

I shrugged. "I think it's war and sometimes the right thing to do to win the war isn't the thing I want to do as a man. It seemed wrong to condemn those children to their deaths. But I know if the weapons had gotten into the wrong hands even more people would have died. It was collateral damage, and I understand that in theory, but the image of the reality of it is too hard for me to let go."

"You blame yourself?" She wondered.

"I blame everybody, and yet there is nobody to hold accountable for it. I blame myself for not trying to get the kids out when we were there even if it meant our lives. I blame my commander for radioing in the air strike. I blame my unit for not having a more proficient explosives guy. My man was good at recognizing stuff, but he sucked at diffusing and he wouldn't even attempt to get the kids out. I blame the damn terrorists for starting this shit in the first place and forcing America to step in to defend their citizens from the few insane men who don't give a shit about their own people. And I blame the jackass that took those children and strapped them in a vest rigged to blow up if they moved too much, or tried to take it off, because they were too much of a pansy to stay there and defend their stash themselves. But it doesn't matter who I blame because I can't make anybody pay for it." I wasn't yelling, but my voice was definitely louder than I wanted it.

I stopped talking and tried to take a deep breath, but found that I was already breathing faster and my heart was racing. This was exactly what I didn't want to happen in this meeting with the doctor and now I had just laid out how damn crazy I was in front of a woman that could never understand what I was talking about.

The silence grew as Dr. Walker continued to watch me try to rein in my emotions. Once I'd mostly calmed down she began to talk in a soothing voice. "My last mission was to Columbia to rescue the wife of a diplomat that had been kidnapped by some drug lord who was trying to teach a lesson to America about not sticking its nose in where it didn't belong."

She ran missions? I knew she was in the military, but I figured that with her being a doctor, the only battle she saw was in a VA. I didn't interrupt her when I saw her eyes glaze over a little. I recognized that expression as one I'd held myself when I was slipping into a memory.

"It took us two weeks to finally find the camp where she was being held. When we slipped in she was in a bed room that wasn't fancy, but it was clean. She was in a simple dress that had been provided to her, but there were no signs that she had been abused. She was virtually screaming in terror, as though she'd been beaten every day, but in reality they'd treated her well after they'd kidnapped her. The problem was she was so spoiled in her real life that she didn't recognize how they'd practically treated her like royalty. I explained who we were and why we were there, and she immediately jumped up and told us to get her out."

She smirked a little but didn't pause too long before continuing. "We put her in the middle of our four man formation to protect her and began walking down the hallway because it was obvious she wasn't going to climb out a forth floor window and rappel to the ground. We got down a flight of stairs when three women came to us who were obviously scared out of their minds. Their clothes were torn and they were bruised and bloodied to the point that I was surprised they had the strength to stand. They begged us to take them with us, and I was of a mind to do it. I didn't know their situation, but they were obviously being abused."

I was suddenly very worried about where this story was heading. "Our target told us to leave them, and when I asked why she explained that they were locals who were brought in when she was. Every day her captives came in and asked for information, and when she was done answering their questions they would take one of the girls and beat them in front of her to remind her how they would handle her if she were to stop cooperating."

I could feel my fist tighten reflexively, and when I looked at Dr. Walker I noticed she was rubbing that scar on her neck with one hand, but her other hand was balled up as tightly as mine was.

"I explained to her that these girls had born the abuse that should have been hers, so we needed to get them to safety as a way to honor their sacrifice. She looked me in the eye and told me her captives would kill the girls when she was gone, so we didn't need to worry about them at all. I couldn't believe how heartless she was, so I told the girls to follow us. The target was furious that we were risking her life by slowing down her rescue to try and accommodate the girls who were obviously too injured to keep up. She continued to complain not even trying to keep quiet. When we got out of the building and to the fence around the compound she waited until she was through the gate and near the safety of the jungle before she let out a blood curdling scream. The guards were immediately clued in on our position and the gun fire began. Two of the women were killed and the third just stopped walking. She looked at me and in accented English, thanked me for trying to save her before turning around and basically giving up her life so that we had time to escape."

Dr. Walker paused before continuing, "We got the bitchy princess back to her husband, and they seemed more upset about the inconvenience her kidnapping had caused them than the fact that three innocent women lost their lives because of her idiotic act. I was fuming when I left Columbia and went back to my CO to file my report and he told me to let it go. I was only authorized to bring back the target and if I'd tried to put those other women on a plane their entrance would have been denied. I hated the woman that was so self-absorbed- she was as guilty as the guards that pulled the trigger and shot the women. And I hated my CO for telling me even if I'd managed to save them I would have been forced to leave them in Columbia, undefended and alone. It took months to get the image of that last girl giving her life knowingly so that we could escape."

Neither of us spoke for a while until I broke the silence by asking, "How did you get rid of the image?" I truly hoped there was a magic pill that I could take that would wash away the faces of those kids.

She shrugged, "It was replaced by another image that haunted me worse. The truth is these missions and the horrors we've seen are a part of us. There is a reason war is described as hell, and part of it is because it claims a piece of your soul just like the devil. We give it willingly because without our sacrifice, there would be no freedom and we recognize that not everyone is capable of living through what we have. The difference is those of us with good hearts continue to struggle instead of turning bitter and then exploding to try and fight back in the false hope that if we make someone else suffer to balance out the injustices we've seen then it will all go away. There is no making this disappear. We deal with it, we talk about it, we dream about it, we continue to fight to understand it, and in time the pain and raw images begin to lessen. They become a part of our collective experience, but they don't go away. They do fade in time, and I have a feeling yours have already begun to. Talking about it today will probably bring up the dreams again for a few days, but they will fade again and maybe this time it won't be as vivid or as hard to endure. I can't 'cure' what you've been through because you've seen things no man should ever have to see. But I can thank you for doing what had to be done, and for remaining human enough to suffer because of it. You didn't let those bastards take away your humanity because of this, and for that I'm grateful."

I looked up at the ceiling feeling a harsh burning in my eyes that I refused to give in to. "You don't think I'm crazy?" I asked, a little worried about the answer.

"Hell, Brian, of course you're crazy. All of us are a little nuts. But you aren't dangerous. I have looked over your service record and you seem to handle yourself fine in the field for RangeMan. And after hearing this story, I want to know why you put in to be reassigned when there was a skip that needed to be brought in for hurting some children in a park. Why didn't you want a piece of him?" She asked me.

"I'd only been here a month and it would have been my second BEA assignment, but I was afraid that if I saw this guy and the pictures of the kids he hurt, I'd lose it and kill him with my bare hands. I knew that wasn't the right response, but I couldn't trust myself to stop if he said or did anything to make me think he enjoyed hurting those children," I told her honestly.

I relaxed a little when I saw her run the tip of her index finger under her eye as though wiping away a tear. I looked back down to give her some privacy. "I like that answer," she admitted. "You're going to be okay, Brian. Just by talking to me today, you've come a long way, and I have no doubt that you will continue to get stronger because of what you've survived."

For some reason I believed her when she said that. Something about the authority in her voice, the fact that she'd made it to the other side of a similar experience and that she was a professional shrink all worked together to make it mean more. Plenty of people had patted me on the back and told me it would all be alright, but they were hollow promises of people who may have meant well, but had no clue what they were talking about. Dr. Walker had it together enough to know we were all falling apart a little on the inside and that was still okay.

"Thanks," I choked out a little embarrassed that my voice wasn't stronger.

"So where did you go on vacation last week, and why don't you won't me to know about it?" She pushed.

I figured I'd already told her the worst of it, so this shouldn't be that hard. "I took a trip to Costa Rica and helped a group from my home town build an orphanage. My sister invited me, and at the time it seemed like a way to make some peace with the past."

"Did it help?" She followed up.

I shrugged. "It didn't hurt. I had a good time and felt like I made a difference. But it didn't change the past either." She nodded as though I'd given the right response.

"Why do they call you Binkie?" She blurted out, giving me a change of topic so fast I nearly got whiplash.

I couldn't help but smile when I told her. "It's not that great of a story."

"Tell me anyway," she pushed with no doubt that I would give in.

"The day I reported for basic training there was some down time and a group of us were hanging around, tossing a football while trying not to think about the next six weeks. A fancy car pulled up and a guy got out in a full dress uniform complete with stars on his shoulders. I didn't know much, but I recognized a general when I saw one, and apparently the others guys did too because the ball hit the ground and none of made a move to pick it up. The man looked around and pointed at me and said, 'you boy, come here.' I gave him a 'yes sir' and walked right over. Then he bent back into the car and pulled out a tiny baby and handed the bundle in a pink blanket to me, instructing me to take the baby to its mother in the building where he was pointing." I couldn't believe I was giving her this story.

"As soon as I took the baby in my arms it started to cry. I looked at the General and told him I didn't think the baby liked me. He told me I was in the Army now, and he was ordering me to make the baby like me, so I decided to try what I'd seen my sisters do hundreds of times with their kids. My hands were dirty, so I wrapped my little finger in the blanket and then put the cotton covered finger on her check. Her hand came up and grasped my finger before shoving it into her mouth. She quit crying immediately and happily chewed on my finger through the blanket with her gums. The general looked at me and said, 'What do you know, she likes you as her binky.' Of course the guys heard that, including my drill sergeant, so from that moment on I have been called Binkie instead of Brian by everyone but my family." As I finished the story I wondered how long it would take for the guys to know the truth of my nickname.

"Hmm," she said with a smile. "I thought it was because of your baby face."

I couldn't help but laugh. My sisters accused me of having a baby face too, but I had no clue what they were talking about. I hated having hair on my face or I'd grow a beard just to cover up the cheeks they were all so enamored with. "If it's all the same to you, I'd prefer everyone to think the same thing."

"I'll take it to the grave," she assured me in a mock serious tone and then ruined it by adding, "But if Bobby and I have kids, I do reserve the right to call on you to babysit."

I rolled my eyes and then chuckled at the effect Steph had on all us guys. In the Army there was no way I'd even entertain the idea of rolling my eyes, but at RangeMan it wasn't that unusual to see one of us do it. "I might be able to be convinced, but it's going to cost you," I bargained.

She looked a little wary. "What do you think your fee would be?"

"I hear you took Hal down in Battleship," I told her, thinking about Hal complaining in the rec room we all shared on four where we lived. He'd been challenging everybody that would play to a game of Battleship, as though he had something to prove. Finally, Tank asked what was so important about that game, and he told us that Dr. Walker had beaten him and he'd never lost before. He was determined to not let that happen again.

"I can't talk about what happens during my evaluation sessions," she teased in response. "But if you want to see my skills, I'm always more than willing to take you on."

"Nah, I'm not much of a battleship fan myself, but I do love Risk. If you ever get tired of Bobby's company, maybe you could come out of the apartment some night and play with us," I challenged her.

She blushed a little, and I was struck at what a complicated person she was. I mean, I had no trouble seeing her as a soldier, and a damn fine doctor, but now she was showing me a side of her that was all woman and I could totally see why Bobby ran off and married her quick and quiet. People like her were rare, and I didn't blame him for wanting to keep her all to himself.

Instead of responding to my words she said, "I think Bobby has an evening shift coming up, so I'll have to venture out and take you on then." With that, she stood up and went to the door informing me our time was up.

I paused awkwardly at the door and said, "Thanks, I really appreciate you talking to me." Before I said anything else to make myself need a pair of high heels, I walked on past her into the hall.

"Come back and see me anytime," she told me seriously. It wasn't an offhanded comment, it was a real invitation. "I don't have a magic solution, but it will get better," she added, reminding me that I was going to be alright.

I heard her door close, so I knew she'd gone back in her office and not left me on the hook to respond. I went slowly down the hall and passed by Bobby's office. He was running his hand through his hair working on paperwork. We'd had to take a skip to the hospital because he 'fell down some stairs' in the single floor bar after a distraction with Stephanie last night, and I knew that meant a lot of explanations were going to have to be manufactured for the condition of the prisoner. There were times that I actually felt sorry for the tight spot we constantly put our medic in.

"Hey man," I called out.

"Binkie," he replied, still seeming irritated with the task in his hands.

"Dr. Walker…" I started to speak, but he interrupted me to say, "It's Dr. Brown now."

I couldn't help but smile at his possessive streak. Of course if she were my woman, I'd be possessive too. "Right, Dr. Brown is alright. I'd never had an eval before, but it wasn't what I expected."

Bobby looked at me strangely, and I knew he'd seen my whole military file. He knew what I'd been through both medically and mentally. He relaxed a little once he realized I wasn't going to say anything negative. "She's the best I've ever seen," he finally added.

"Does she have a sister?" I asked, not wanting him to focus too much on my history.

He laughed and said, "Nah, sorry. You're on your own with that."

I walked away and laughed. I hadn't really thought about getting somebody steady in my life before. But after seeing the effect it had on Lester and Bobby, I wondered if it might be possible. Hell, even the notorious badass Hector was apparently seeing somebody; and it was a suit from DC no less, which was impossible for me to picture. I guess it was time for me to stop worrying over the ghosts of children in the past and try to live like a man in the present.


	5. Tank

_The Plum Universe below is all from JE's creativity, not mine._

_Fredda (Rangergirl1234) thank you so much for all the time you have spent as my beta and sounding board._

_Amy (beancounter74) thank you for sharing yourself as the model for Dr. Amy below._

**Chapter 5 - Tank**

I was passing the time by pulling the stray hair Mr. Cuddles left on my pants this morning when he climbed in my lap while I was eating breakfast. I hadn't thought about how hard it would be to have a white cat shedding on my black clothes. Of course I wouldn't typically notice it, but I was a couple minute early for my assessment and Dr. Walker was in her husband's office with the door closed. I will assume she was in there comparing some sort of medical notes with him, but the fact that I just heard his name ringing out is most likely evidence to the contrary.

I told my cousin Marcus I had an appointment with his doctor and he growled at me and told me I better be on my best behavior. Then thirty minutes later my cell phone rang and my other cousin Ben was on the line to tell me if I knew what was good for me I'd cooperate with her questions and let her do her job. As if they weren't enough, Hector was standing in my parking space this morning with his legs and arms crossed glaring at me as I got out of my truck. He said only, "Do right by the doctor or I'll be back." I may be big, and some people might consider me intimidating, but I still think having three guys threaten me about an hour alone with a shrink is a bit excessive.

I sat up a little straighter out of habit when I heard Bobby's office open and footsteps moving from his room to Dr. Walker's office where I'd propped open the door to keep anyone from sneaking up on me.

"Hi Tank," she said as she came in, running her hand through her recently shortened hair. It used to be well down her back, but after her honeymoon her and Steph went out and she came back with it shortened to shoulder length. It was pretty and shiny, and I had a feeling Bobby was glad it was shorter so that she'd wear it down more. At least, if she was my woman, I'd want her to wear it down.

I nodded my greeting, figuring she was used to the men in my family being a little on the quiet side.

She sat down with a folder in her hand and flipped through the pages at breakneck speed. Either she read at an incredible rate or she wasn't all that impressed with what was on the pages and didn't see the need to waste her time reading every word. It only took a couple of minutes to finish her review and toss the folder on the table in front of us.

"You don't talk much," she started and then paused, waiting for a response.

"I say something if I need to, but I don't feel the need to fill the air with noise," I clarified.

"The resemblance between you and Marcus is uncanny," she said under her breath.

"Actually, he was the loud one growing up. It wasn't until he came back from Iraq that he got quiet," I told her, hoping I wasn't breaking some kind of rule about talking about other people's past.

"So did you used to be talkative and your own tours took the conversation gene out of you as well?" She asked, sounding more curious than clinical.

"Nope," I told her honestly. "I used to be shy, but the Army helped me get over that. Now I just like to take in a situation before talking. Most people think I'm big and dumb, and the less I say the more they tend to talk. It usually works to my advantage."

She nodded, agreeing with what I was saying. "I have found that being quiet usually does make other people talk. I'm sure it's a great strategy."

There were a few moment where neither of us said anything, and I wondered if she was going to use my words against me to see if I'd start talking. Crossing my arms, I relaxed into the seat figuring I could sit here for the rest of the hour if that's what she wanted.

She sneezed loudly, breaking the silence of the room and then jumped up to grab a tissue. From her desk she asked, "How many cats do you have?"

I raised an eyebrow wondering why she asked that. As if she understood what I was wondering she explained, "I'm only allergic to one thing, and I'm guessing that sneeze was the first of many yet to come because you have cat dander on your clothes."

She popped a pill from a bottle in her desk and then said, "Benadryl," as an explanation.

When she sat back down holding the box of tissues I decided to answer her question. As much as I liked to keep my soft side hidden, I'd still rather talk about my cats than my missions so I said, "Four."

She looked completely lost for a second and then understood. "Oh, you have four cats." She pulled a tissue from the box but didn't use it on her nose. "Why do you like cats instead of dogs?"

I chose not to comment on the stereotypical nature of her question and instead told her the truth. "Dogs are too needy and noisy. Cats take care of themselves and will sit still in your lap while you pet them and tell them about your day. In the end, they purr at the fact that you're there and don't really give a shit about everything you just dumped on them."

She seemed to understand that answer and then followed up, "So do you always tell them about your day?"

"I don't walk around the house talking to my cats like some old maid," I corrected her assumption.

"That's not what I asked," she pointed out in return. "What I'm getting at is that we all process the stuff that happens to us in some way. Some of what we have experienced though is classified and not the kind of thing you can just talk about over a beer with the guys. Do you talk to your cats about those things?"

When she put it like that it made me sound like such a wimp to talk to them at all. I mean, I know they're cats, not people, but I always felt better when I told them about my day. "I guess," I said in a non-committed way.

She looked at me so intently I started to feel like she was just digging around in my head, pulling out the information directly that she needed for her report.

"Did you dream last night?" She asked randomly. The guys had warned me that she liked to do that.

I had to stop and think, and then I could answer her honestly. "Yes."

She rolled her hand in the air to indicate she wanted me to tell her about the dream. I waited for her to sneeze once more and then I shared it with her. It was weird dream anyway, so I didn't see the harm. "I was in the circus."

"Sitting in the seats watching?" She wondered.

"No, I was in it, performing," I told her, glad my face wasn't one that showed embarrassment because I knew my cheeks were warm.

"Lion tamer?" She asked as a wild guess.

"No," I stopped with just the one word answer.

She made a face of impatience and then leaned forward to say, "You know this hour will pass a lot faster if you just tell me about the dream and don't make me play twenty questions with you."

"You played games with some of the other guys," I pointed out, feeling childish.

"Only after they talked a little," she sounded just like a mother pointing out the error of her child's ways.

I shut my eyes and tried to picture what I could remember about my dream. "I was a tightrope walker, and I was halfway across the rope carrying one of those long poles to keep my balance. It was all going well until the guys on the trapeze got the idea of flying through air and landing on my balance stick. I caught the first two fine, but then a third one landed and threw us all off. I woke up when we were falling to the ground."

"Was there a net to catch you?" She asked, as though it were the most important detail to understanding my psyche.

I looked at her giving her a chance to understand that this was my dream, and I didn't have a safety net in real life so why would I have one in my imagination.

"Right…" she said getting it without me elaborating. "Real men don't need to be caught when they fall."

I nodded my agreement, and she smiled at me for some odd reason. "Do you think that's what you do here?"

"I don't understand the question," I told her. If she wanted me to participate in this conversation, she was going to have to be more clear.

"Do you feel like your role in life is to keep things at RangeMan balanced? You fill in for Ranger when he's in the wind, you handle the guys to keep their petty issues from causing trouble with the boss, and you protect Ranger at all cost in order to keep things running the way they always have. You are a peacekeeper at heart. The fact that you keep the peace with a gun and a massive sized fist is beside the point." I liked the way she put that last part.

"That's a fair statement," I replied to her description.

"Do you have any children?" She asked out of the blue.

"Why would you ask that?" I tried to throw her off the subject by questioning her thought process.

"You call Stephanie Little Girl, and it isn't in the least bit offensive like it would be if Vince or Hal tried to do it. With you it is more paternal, which makes me wonder if you have any children of your own? I don't see any mentioned of them in your file, but I've learned what's admitted to on paper and reality isn't always the same." She laid it out there and still expected an answer.

"This conversation stays here?" I both asked and commanded.

She rolled her eyes as though she couldn't believe I asked that question. "I'm not writing this down, not recording it, nor will I share what you say with anyone, ever. This conversation starts and stops in this room."

I'd never told anyone the whole story about my past. Ranger knew parts of it, but even he didn't know the full picture. There were some things you didn't talk about; things that were best dealt with by bottling them up and keeping a tight lid on them.

She was waiting patiently for me to talk so I decided to see what it was like to go back and rip the lid off the past. "When I was a junior in high school I dated a girl name Natalie. She was a little thing, maybe three inches over five feet and a hundred and ten pounds if she was wet and in jeans. Her Dad was from my neighborhood, and he was a popular black businessman that owned a little variety store. Her mom was a tiny woman from the Dominican Republic, and they both loved me. Other than the difference in our sizes, Natalie and I were perfectly compatible in every way. I loved that little thing, and we had a whole future planned out where we'd go to college together and get married right after we graduated. But we got a little ahead of ourselves the night of our junior prom, and we made a baby that we hadn't figured into our plans."

Saying this out loud was harder than I thought. "When her parents found out they were furious and barred me from their house. They were convinced I'd ruined her future and they refused to let us have any contact. She dropped out of school because her parents wouldn't let her come for her senior year while she was showing. They wanted her to put the baby up for adoption, but she flat out refused. We managed to sneak a few conversations in behind her parents' back and we came up with a new plan that after the baby was born, and I graduated from high school, we'd elope and start a life together away from her parents. It was torture to be separated from her, but knowing that we would be together eventually made it bearable."

I stopped to take a deep breath before going any further. Dr. Walker didn't say a word to make me go any faster. I guess she knew how hard this was. "A couple weeks before her due date she went into labor and her parents took her to the hospital. The doctor let her go ahead since it wasn't too early for the baby, and after hours of labor with no progression she began to complain that something felt wrong. Her parents were proud people, and they didn't have a lot of extra money for health insurance, so the delivery was being paid for in cash and they refused any kind of tests to verify that things were progressing the right way. The doctors assured her since this was her first baby and she was so small it was bound to be long and difficult. After almost twenty hours of labor she was finally ready to push and she delivered a six pound baby girl who had slightly curly dark hair on top. The baby had the cord wrapped around its neck really tightly and despite it's dark skin tone, it was blue. My little girl never cried, never took a breath, never got a chance to live."

The box of tissues that had been in Dr. Walker's hand for her allergies was being held out to me. I took one out of habit, and until it was in my hand I didn't even realize there were tears streaming down my face. If one of the guys opened that door right now they'd never believe this was me – big Tank, sitting on a couch crying like a baby.

"Natalie's parents basically told her this was God's way of getting rid of the problem and they hoped she learned her lesson. I saw her a few times after she got out of the hospital, but she was different. Losing that baby took all the life from her too, and she pushed me away saying that it was too hard to look at me because it reminded me too much of what she'd lost. I struggled to finish out my senior year, and after I graduated I couldn't move on with the dream that had been ours together, so I joined the army hoping it would get me as far away from home as possible. The rest I guess is history."

"So when you call Stephanie Little Girl, what are you saying?" She asked quietly.

I felt a little more together, and I had already spilled everything else so answering this wasn't that hard. "Her curly hair drew me in the first time I saw her. I always thought my Little Girl would have hair like that, so I watched her extra close from the beginning. Then I saw how she was an independent little thing that was smart as a whip, but undervalued because of her background and appearance. I guess I felt the need to defend her because I saw her potential. It was my way of nurturing someone the way I might have watched over my own daughter. I mean, I know she isn't mine, and she's my age so clearly she isn't my daughter, but I felt like watching over her was a way of honoring what I lost."

I paused and looked over at Dr. Walker who had a hint of a smile on her face. "Am I crazy?"

"No more so than the rest of us," she replied quickly. "I do think you are probably the most wonderful man I've ever met, aside from my husband."

I looked back down at her kind words. She didn't seem like the kind to blow smoke, but that was a bit much for me to accept.

"How many cats did Natalie have?" She asked randomly.

"Four," I replied automatically.

"How many dogs did you have as a boy?" She pushed.

"Two, one was a Labrador mix and the other was a mutt with no discernable breed," I told her, wondering where this was going.

"So you having a litter of cats of your own now, that you prefer to dogs because they are more independent and easy listeners, might also be a way of you recognizing how important Natalie was in your life," she suggested.

"Maybe," I conceded. "But I do like the cats. I mean, I don't just have them because of her. They're good company. Most people don't realize it, but they are actually natural predators, build to attack and disable. They just get overlooked because of their packaging. They're soft and all, but you definitely don't want your finger in their mouth."

"I can see your point," she agreed with a smile.

"So does all that stuff make you worry about me?" I asked her, trying to figure out of being honest with her was going to get me a bad evaluation and keep me from the field.

She looked thoughtful for a minute before answering, "Yes, I will worry about you, because now I feel like I know you better and I'll consider you my friend in addition to my co-worker. But if you're asking about the evaluation, no I don't have any concerns. You are one of the more stable guys here. You manage to balance everything, keep the peace, and hold everything together in a really healthy way."

I looked at her body language to see if what she was saying and what she was thinking were two different things, but she was completely relaxed. "Thanks," I told her, realizing that one word probably didn't do justice to how I felt. Hopefully, she'd understand.

She looked at her watch and frowned. The act made my check my own watch to see what was so concerning. My hour evaluation had stretched over two hours. Before I could try to figure out what must be so upsetting about that she spoke, "I was going to see if you wanted to put together a puzzle while we talked, but I've got Manny coming down for his evaluation any minute and we don't have time to keep going."

I smiled at her. "You're alright, you know that, right?"

"I've heard it once or twice, but it's always great to hear it again," she replied, taking the tissues back over to the desk once more.

I got up and brushed my cargos once more out of a nervous habit more than need. I put my hand on the door handle to leave and thanked her once more for talking to me. She reached her hand up to my shoulder and rubbed a few little circles there. That was all that needed to be said.

I went down the hall thinking that despite how hard it was to talk about my past, now that it was over I felt a little better. I'd spent so much time forcing my secrets into the dark that I rarely talked without a purpose in order to keep from saying something that would take me back to that time. Now that I'd intentionally brought it all up, I wasn't as worried about it. Strangely, I felt like talking just for the hell of it. I could go upstairs and talk to Ranger, but he'd probably think something was wrong if I went in his office all happy.

Without thinking it through, I picked up my cell phone and keyed in a number I knew by heart.

When her voice answered, I smiled. "Little Girl, I'm thinking about having a big greasy lunch of ribs. If you'll come with me, I'll buy." Stephanie was more than happy to go with me, so I made my way to the stairs to meet her in the garage.

I met Bobby on the steps as I was going down and he was coming back up. "Your wife is something else," I told him.

"Yea, she is," he agreed with pride. "I'm convinced there's nothing she can't handle."

"I don't know about that," I warned him and hid my smile behind my practiced blank face. "I wouldn't suggest putting her in a room with a cat."

I kept walking away leaving him there wondering what that was supposed to mean. You'd think after having wiped tears off my face just an hour earlier I wouldn't be smiling this big, but I just totally threw our medic, had a great talk with a real lady, and was about to have lunch with my Little Girl. I had plenty to be happy about.


	6. Manny

_JE created the Plum universe I am using below._

_Fredda (Rangergirl1234) with all that you have going on I am so grateful for your work as the beta on this story._

_Amy (beancounter74) thank you for the inspiration for Dr. Amy Walker below._

_A/N: I am having a great time writing these one-shots into the minds of the guys, but I miss the continuity of a regular story as well, so I am going to leave this story open ended, continuing to update, but on a very irregular schedule. I am doing this so that I can begin my next Babe story some time at the end of next week. I didn't want you to think I was giving up on this one just because I had started something else._

**Chapter 6 - Manny**

I could hear Tank's boots on the stairs going down as I was heading up. The fact that he had an evaluation before me this morning and that he was now practically running from the building wasn't lost on me. Shit, if the doctor could make the big guy want to run away then I had no chance of making it out of this in good shape.

The door was closed, so I knocked twice before she called out for me to come in. I let myself in the small office and noticed her face was buried in a folder full of hand written notes. I sat on the sofa along the wall and glanced around. There were a few framed photos on a book shelf beside her desk and what appeared to be a bad ass mustang model car in a case that was identical to the car Bobby tricked out. No wonder those two connected so quickly.

She shut the folder and smiled before coming over to sit in the chair beside me. "So Manny, how are you?"

Was that a trick question? Did she expect me to do some sort of self analysis? I decided to go with a simpler answer, "I'm fine."

She smiled as though she wasn't surprised by that answer. "How long have you been at RangeMan?"

"Three and a half years." That was easy enough.

"So you started just a little bit before Stephanie began coming around," she stated doing the mental math herself.

"That's right," I confirmed, unwilling to say anything else about Bomber.

"I understand you and Stephanie have a unique relationship." Her hand was near her mouth like she was trying to keep me from seeing her smile.

I had no idea what she was talking about, and I guess my face must have shown it. "Come on, even though she's married to Santos now, you still have the distinction of being the first guy she ever willingly said was her husband."

I relaxed then, "Yup, that's me, Steph's hospital husband."

"Were you aware she had lied to the nurse to be able to talk to you?" She asked.

"Not at the time. I knew I needed to tell her what I could, but I didn't know why the staff let her through and not one of the guys. Still, Ranger trusted her, and that was enough for me to trust that I could tell her what I knew," I remembered.

"So you accepted her right off the bat because Ranger did?" She wondered.

"I wouldn't say that. The first few times she was in the building I assumed it was just a passing fancy between the two of them. Like a physical thing that would eventually burn out and be gone. But the more she came around the more I began to notice she seemed alright. I mean, Ranger took care of her, and gave her cars and all, but she didn't seem to be working him for them. If anything, she fought him every time he tried to do something for her, so I figured it was more than just a quick fling," I explained, realizing it probably made it made like I thought Steph was a gold digger. I may have thought that initially, but I certainly didn't think it for very long.

"Did it surprise you that she married Lester?" Dr. Walker asked.

I shrugged. "I guess so. I mean, they definitely had a connection, and things between her and Ranger had cooled down, but I didn't realize she and Lester were officially dating, so the announcement that they were married was a shock. After seeing them together though, it makes sense."

"Why didn't you make a move for her?" She pushed, turning the conversation in a direction I didn't want to go.

I looked down for a minute wishing my brain could come up with a suitable answer. "It never seemed like the right time."

"But you wanted to ask her out," the doc stated as fact.

"Most of the guys here wanted to, but we all figured she was off limits because of Ranger. Even after their relationship changed we still figured he'd call us to the mats if we tried to make a move, so we all left her alone," I summed up the way most of us felt. I knew my observation was right because it was a popular topic of conversation in the locker room for a while after Ranger went to Miami and Stephanie seemed to be so lost.

"So you were afraid of Ranger." When Dr. Walker said that it sounded like we were a bunch of chumps quaking in our boots.

"Have you met Ranger?" I asked her in return, implying that anyone in their right mind would hold some healthy respect, if not fear, for our boss. Then I decided to level with her. "I guess I was afraid of what Ranger would say, and I wasn't sure Steph would be interested in me, so I didn't want to put my neck on the line and then get shot down on top of everything else."

"Do you always weigh out every possible negative outcome before acting?" She pushed.

"I guess I do. It's saved my life on a number of occasions, so I tend to keep doing what works," I replied, wondering why she didn't understand that. I'd heard she was in the Army and had led mission teams of her own. I didn't figure I'd have to explain tactics to her of all people.

"I understand a high stress situation where you need to carefully consider every possible angle in order to save your life or the life of those serving with you," she cut in, as though she'd heard my internal thoughts. "But asking a girl out for dinner or a movie hardly counts as life or death. And even if it did piss off Ranger and get you called to the mats, you've survived worse than that, so you can't use the possibility of getting knocked out as evidence that you were in mortal peril."

She was definitely tougher than she looked. "I guess I like to hold back until I'm sure of what the outcome is going to be."

Her expression changed to one I didn't recognize. It was almost pity, but that didn't make sense. "You realize there are few situations in life that have guaranteed outcomes, right?"

"I get the whole death and taxes are the only givens in life, if that's what you're going for," I tried to appease her.

"Don't patronize me, Manny," she said in a voice that left no doubt she was my superior officer. "You don't have a girlfriend, yet when you went out a couple nights ago I saw plenty of girls giving you the look that was screaming for you to make a move. So either you are gay and not interested in making a move, or you've been shut down in a way that has hurt you enough that the thought of having your heart broken again feels like a life or death situation. Since I think it's fair to say your past interest in Stephanie rules out the gay option, you need to start talking. What has you so scared of stepping out on a ledge with a woman?"

Damn, I had no idea my annual evaluation could take this turn. "Shouldn't we be talking about my ability to function at RangeMan? What does my lack of a love life have to do with my job skills?" My tone was defensive, and I knew my question was an obvious attempt to deflect her away from this topic, but I was desperate.

"You want to talk about RangeMan?" Uh oh. I didn't have loads of experience with women, but anybody with a half decent mother could recognize that tone of voice. It was the one my mom used to take before she flipped a conversation around, nailed my ass for something I'd done wrong, and then punished me for a crime I had been so certain I'd get away with. "You are afraid to take risks, you have closed off a major part of your life, you are incapable of maintaining a real relationship, and you have the worst skills of deflection I've ever seen. If you can't talk to me about this, then I'm not entirely sure I can recommend you for continued service. Do you see the connection to RangeMan now?"

I leaned forward, put my elbows on my knees, and dropped my head to my hands. "I wasn't prepared for the conversation to take this kind of turn."

"You can't go through life prepared for everything that's thrown at you," she softened slightly. "Sometimes you have to go with the flow and take what happens as it happens."

"I used to be a player, and when women threw themselves at me in a bar I loved it. I could flirt with the best of them to thin down the herd, and I never went home alone unless I wanted to," I told her, confirming her guess that I wasn't gay. It would have been easier to go with that route to stop this conversation, but I could feel the undercurrent of her little speech. If I didn't talk, I was a coward and that was one accusation that I couldn't stomach.

"So what happened to that arrogant kid who went through women like candy bars?" I smiled at her summary. That wasn't far off the mark.

"After I finished Ranger school I went back home to celebrate, and I hooked up with the girl next door – literally. She and I had grown up together and were always close friends, but that's all we were. She'd gone off to college and was home visiting before entering medical school. It was so easy with Rosie. She knew me, my past, my sense of humor, and my dreams for the future. She had her own drive to succeed, so we connected in every possible way. I never thought I'd fall for her, but over the course of the two weeks we were both at home I spent every possible moment with her." I could feel my chest tighten just talking about that time. I considered that to be the happiest I'd ever been.

"So what happened to take you from completely open with the woman of your dreams to closed off with all women?" Dr. Walker wondered.

"I had to leave for my first tour, and she went on to school. We wrote all the time so that I got letters from her at least every other day. I felt like we were building a relationship that would be invincible. We had the physical part down pat and the letters were a way to make what we had even deeper." When I said it out loud, it sounded like some kind of sappy Hallmark shit.

"It sounds like you were building something good," she brought me back from my thoughts. "What happened?"

"We saw each other every time I was stateside, and we continued writing. For two years we maintained a relationship that had every guy in my unit jealous. Rosie and I were perfect together, and I couldn't stop picturing our life together. We'd get married after she finished medical school, and eventually we'd have a few kids and a great life. We were best friends, and the future was ours for the taking." I glanced at the doc and she raised an eyebrow at me. I was stalling and she knew it. Apparently, she was tired of asking what happened.

"I got a week long leave unexpectedly and was able to arrange for transport to get me back to Texas where she was in school. I was exhausted, but I wanted to see her, and I knew she would be thrilled to see me too. I used the address I'd been writing to as my guide and had a taxi drop me off at the duplex she was renting. I was tired, but knowing she was on the other side of the door had me ready for the surprise reunion that I figured was about to rock my world. It was early in the morning, so I knew she was there because Rosie wasn't a morning person, and there was no way she was up and functional at 0500." I swallowed hard trying to keep my stomach from revolting at the part of the story that was coming up next.

"I knocked on the door hard because I knew I was waking her up. Eventually the locks tumbled, and I dropped my duffle bag so that I could pull her into my arms when she saw me. But when the door opened I saw a guy in his boxers with scratches down his chest identical to the ones Rosie had put on me the last time we were together. He asked who I was, but before I could come up with an appropriate answer Rosie appeared in a t-shirt behind him. She was as beautiful as I remembered, sporting her morning after sex look." My palms were sweating, so I wiped them on my pants to avoid the rest of it.

"I couldn't come up with a single thing to say, so I just stood there faced with the evidence that while I was half a world away she was here having sex with another man. My best friend, the woman I pictured growing old with, was cheating on me. Rosie told the guy it was okay, and he disappeared so we could talk. She tried to feed me some bull-shit line about not loving him, but having such a high stress life that she needed a physical release to handle it. She assured me that she only wanted me in her heart, but until I was around more than a few weeks a year, she needed me to accept her having sex with other guys." You'd think it was a perfect situation because she was also giving me permission to have meaningless sex with other women, but I wasn't wired that way.

"What did you do?" Dr. Walker asked softly.

"I grabbed her by her shoulders and pulled her to me so that I could kiss her forehead. Then I spun around and walked out, picking up my duffle bag on the way. I got myself back to the airport and rejoined my unit two days later. She kept writing for a few months, trying to explain things, hoping I'd see it from her point of view. But eventually her letters just got too hard to read, so I started returning them back to her unopened. It didn't take long for her to get the hint and stop writing. At first, I celebrated my new found freedom by trying to screw as many women as possible, but that burned out pretty quick. After having a relationship that seemed real, the whole one night stand thing just didn't work for me anymore." And that was the end of my dirty little secret.

"So now what?" She pressed.

"Now I'd like to find someone, but it's hard to trust anybody enough to open up again. I mean, I thought for sure that Rosie was being true to me, and look how that turned out. I don't want to be alone, but I don't want to go through being betrayed again either." I shuddered at that thought. It took me months to get my shit together after Rosie, and I knew that wasn't something I could do again.

"So until someone proves themselves to be worthy of your trust, you won't open yourself up to them?" She asked.

"I know it seems twisted, but every time I meet someone new I begin to find ways that they remind of Rosie, and then my mind begins to put two and two together. If she is like Rosie in that way, she might be more like her in other ways too, and then I lose interest," I confessed proving why I rarely left a bar with a girl on my arm anymore.

Dr. Walker seemed to be lost in thought for a while and then said, "Have you ever served with a shitty soldier?"

Some of the guys said Dr. Walker tended to pull questions out of nowhere, but that subject change was abrupt. "Sure. I've had a few guys through the years that have left me wondering how they made it to their current rank and station."

"Ever gotten shot because one of them failed at their duty?" I wondered if she asked that because she'd seen my medical record.

"Yes. My last mission had me taking one in the shoulder because my partner froze and didn't eliminate his target when we stormed in a room of hostiles. I took out four men, and one guy he was supposed to hit had time to fire a round at me. I had to take him out too. When I looked over, assuming my partner was dead since that was the only reason I would have failed to accomplish such a simple objective, he was standing there with his gun in front of him and glassy expression on his face. He was scared, and his fear kept him from acting. It could have cost me my life." I figured it would help hurry things along if I just gave her all the details at once.

"So when you came back did you have trouble working at RangeMan?" Now it seemed we were finally getting to my evaluation. Hopefully this would all be over soon.

"No," I told her honestly. "In fact, the new kid Brett has been my partner for the last six months, and I never doubted his ability to have my back."

"So a soldier nearly cost you your life, yet you still trust other soldiers. A girl broke your heart, but all women are destined to do the same thing. That seems like an unfair double standard to me." Well when she put it like that, it seemed that way to me too.

"I hadn't thought about it like that," I confessed, looking down again.

"You know, not all women would have cheated like that. Most are faithful to the men they love." It was said as a fact, so I didn't see the need to argue the point.

"If that's true, then how did I manage to find the exception to the rule?" I asked, knowing there wasn't really an answer to my question.

She smiled at me with a sly expression. "Look at it this way, statistically you've already been through the wringer, so it is highly unlikely that you will have the same thing happen again."

"That's not as much comfort as I'd like before putting myself out there again," I replied.

"How about this," she countered. "You are unhappy alone, you would like to share your life with someone if you could find the right person, so at least putting yourself out there and attempting to find someone has to be better than spending your evenings by yourself, wishing things were different. And since you have a more stable job that no longer requires you to be gone more than you are home, you have a greater chance of getting to know the real woman in front of you. Anyone can lie in a letter and get away with it, but face to face you would probably pick up on it if it happened again."

She had a point. I was great at reading people, and if I spent much time with the woman I'd pick up on her usual cues to make it that much simpler to do. "I guess you've got a point," I finally conceded.

She grinned at my admission. "Of course I do. You learn a few things about people in this line of work. I think if you put yourself out there, you will find you enjoy it. You may find someone special you want to get to know better, and you may not, but being willing to take a chance is what's important here."

I lifted my head to look at the doc a little better. "Alright, but you aren't going to be riding me asking for details about my dates are you?"

She lifted an eyebrow in challenge to my question. "I don't ride people, Manny. I ask questions that have consequences if people try to evade them, but that isn't the same thing as riding." She looked like she was struggling to keep a straight face.

"Semantics," I answered with a hint of humor.

She laughed before getting serious again to say, "I don't want or need details, but I do want to know you've at least tried. This is important, because it's acknowledging that there is more to you than your job. People who live only for this kind of work can become very unstable. And you are too great of a guy to fall into that kind of trap. You've got too much to offer."

"Is this you trying to boost my self-image so that I'll feel like going out and trying to meet someone?" I teased.

With no trace of humor she told me, "Absolutely not. I don't blow smoke; I never saw the reason for it. But I do like you and I think you've been given a big dose of shit that you didn't deserve. You've carried it as though you somehow deserved it, and I'm determined to see you get a clean start at the happiness you ought to have."

"Thanks," I replied, unsure of what else to say. Then I decided to throw her a curve ball of my own. "You don't happen to know any available women do you?"

She laughed. "I might know a few nurses at the VA. I'd be more than glad to hook you up."

"I think I can try it without a blind date for now, but it's nice to know that option's available if I need it," I told her.

"So are you going to give me a bad evaluation?" I wondered.

She shook her head. "No, you opened up and talked, and your past fully explains the behaviors I'd observed that concerned me. You seem pretty open to working on them, which as far as I'm concerned is pretty damned healthy."

"You had concerns about me?" I couldn't stop myself from asking.

"Your file was the only one that had good things written in it," she explained. "I am pretty sure you must have talked to him, somehow turning the conversation so that he was talking about himself instead of you. He probably loved feeling like an expert and didn't want to believe you were hiding anything because in his twisted view you came off as so normal."

"Are you saying I'm not normal?" I blurted out.

"I'm saying the dangers of this job pretty much weed out all the people that joker would consider normal. Your first reaction when you hear a gun shot is to grab your own weapon, not to cower and beg God to spare your life, right?" She pegged me perfectly.

"Of course," I admitted freely.

"Then by society's standards, you aren't normal. But by RangeMan standards, you seem perfect for the job." Her ability to keep things in the right frame of reference was refreshing. I guess we didn't need to hide with her because she'd been through some stuff of her own.

With a quick glance to her watch she stood up and walked to the door. "You're all done," she told me as she opened the barrier to the hall.

"Thanks for this," I said, hoping she knew I really meant it. I never expected to have to talk about Rosie to keep my position, but after talking about her I suddenly felt a little more like doing my job. I wasn't sure how that happened, but I was glad it had.

I saw it was time for a late lunch, so I decided to go to the little dinner a couple of blocks away. There was a waitress there I had noticed reading a military history book the last time I was there. With any luck I might be able to get her to talk to me.

Bobby was coming out of his office when I walked by and he lifted his head as a greeting. "Hey man," I called back to him as we passed. He turned to see what I was going to say. "You're wife is really something."

Bobby seemed a little uneasy with my description of his woman. "I'm glad she knows how to push a little to make people talk. She's tough, and I needed that."

He seemed to understand what I meant and turned it into a joke. "You don't have to tell me she knows how to push; try being married to her." He made it sound like a burden, but the smile on his face told me he'd never been as happy as he was now. If she got on him, I had a feeling he loved it.

I walked outside and headed down the street to lunch thinking about that look on Bobby's face. I didn't know if the waitress I was going to talk to would turn into anything, but for the first time since Rosie I thought it might be nice to have a woman that could ride me. Realizing my Freudian slip, I smiled even bigger. Yea, it was time to get back in the game.


	7. Stephanie

_The Plum Universe below is due to the genius of JE._

_Fredda (Rangergirl1234) thank you so much for your hard work as the beta on this story and for encouraging me even when chapters take interesting turns._

_Amy (beancounter74) as the real life inspiration for Dr. Walker I hope you like this one._

**Chapter 7 - Stephanie**

I had a few minutes before Amy would arrive, so I took that time to set up the goodies I'd snuck in for us. I picked up Mooner this morning, so I already had some left over snacks, but I stopped by the Quick Mart to add to my stash to help give us a nice little junk food buffet to talk over during my evaluation. Chips with French onion dip, some M&Ms - both plain and peanut butter filled, Cool Ranch Doritos, and a pint of Half Baked Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream with two spoons. That seemed like enough to tide us over for an hour.

Just as I was pulling the seal off the cap of the ice cream the door opened and Amy walked in holding a file in her hands. I knew she was focused on her reading, so I just continued what I was doing and waited for her to look up. I'd known her long enough to know when she was lost in her thoughts there was no point in trying to interrupt.

She managed to walk over to the chair beside me and plop down in it without looking up once to see where she was walking. If it had been me, I would have run straight into the table and landed hair first in the dip. Sometimes I really hated being such a klutz.

She shut the folder and tossed it on to the table with it sliding into the side of the chips. Her eyes got bigger as she took in the spread in front of her, and then a big grin came over her face. "You know, if it were anybody else I'd accuse them of trying to sway my professional opinion by buttering me up with snacks."

"And since it's me, what do you think?" I couldn't help but ask.

"I think it's you using me as an excuse to gorge yourself on junk food, knowing that as long as that door is closed no will sneak in here and either steal it to eat themselves or to rat you out to Lester," she said, hitting the nail on the head while stealing a hand full of M&Ms.

"Guilty," I admitted, knowing there was no point in denying it. I'd spent many phone conversations with Amy complaining about Lester's new interest in what I was eating. Ever since I told him about my dream where I'd been pregnant he's been obsessed with getting me in better shape. I didn't mind the running too much, and the self-defense and sparring training had been fun, but the harping about my nutrition of late was getting on my nerves. I knew he was right that what I ate would directly affect the baby, but I wasn't pregnant, and we weren't even trying yet, but I could tell from the look on his face whenever he thought about us stating a family. He would get the most tender expression on his face and he'd find a way to put his hand on my belly. It was hard to be upset with him when he was being so loving and gentle.

"So what do we need to do for the evaluation?" I asked, not wanting the food in front of us to keep us from getting down to business.

She laughed and said, "You know you're the only person that's come in here looking forward to talking."

"What can I say?" I tried to brush it off. "I don't really have any secrets since everyone can read me so well, plus I figure you know me pretty well, so if you thought I was completely nuts you probably wouldn't go out of your way to spend time with me."

She nodded her agreement before saying, "I did read the evaluation from last year where my predecessor had some interesting comments about your position with the company."

"Let me guess," I wondered if I could sum up what the old pervert had written about me. "He thought I didn't have the training or skill to do the job. On top of that, he thought I was a complete nymphomaniac for enjoying a job where I dressed like a streetwalker and paraded around in front of men in bars. Then he probably said that because of my relationship with Ranger he wasn't at liberty to fail me on my evaluation."

"Bulls-eye on every single count," Amy conceded, reaching for the Doritos. "Does it bother you?" She asked around the crunching.

I shrugged, trying to figure out the right answer to the question. "Sometimes." I should have known better than to give her such a vague answer. She was giving me that stare that I knew meant I had some explaining to do.

"The guys who have been here the longest know the deal completely. When I put on the slutty clothes they joke around about me looking good, but when we show up at the bar they are completely professional about it. And when it's over they put a coat on me and get me back home because they understand that it makes me feel dirty. So with them, there is never a problem because it's just a job, and they recognize that it comes with a certain cost to me, so they do everything they can to minimize the cost." I always relaxed when a distraction was scheduled with only the guys I felt closest to. Not only did I trust them the most to be sure nothing got out of hand, but I knew they'd get me in and out quickly so that I could put the night behind me quicker.

"But when I work with a new guy, or if someone sees me that doesn't understand why the distractions are sometimes necessary, then I don't like it. They automatically presume that I'm a whore because I'm dressed like one. They assume I enjoy having those creeps put their hands on me and say disgusting things, and no amount of explaining will change their minds." I shivered involuntarily as I thought about how some of the skips had handled me.

"What about Lester?" That was an interesting follow up question.

I stopped to really think about the question while a bite of ice cream melted on my tongue. "Before we were married he was the first one to make a comment about my outfit and always the one I could use to help me get the skip's attention, but since I changed my last name to his, I think he's struggled more with them."

"What do you mean by struggled more?" She asked, holding out her hand for the ice cream. I handed it over, keeping my spoon and watching as she picked up the spare one on the table.

"He drives me to the bar, and I can usually tell from the look on his face that he likes the outfits, but he doesn't make any rude comments. He doesn't work inside - ever. Sometimes he's at the door for the take down, but just as often he's not even working, he just hangs out in the parking lot until I'm finished with my part. Then he brings one of his coats over to me and puts it on me, keeping me close to him until we're released to leave. He takes us to the condo, never to the building, and walks me up to the shower and kisses me softly before walking out and leaving me in there alone to get cleaned off. When I'm ready to come out, he's almost always in the kitchen making some sort of light snack and we watch a movie on the couch with him holding me against him in some super close position." I gave her all the details of our post distraction routine.

"Why do you think he does that?" She wondered.

"The first distraction I worked after he was back was a horrible experience. He was at the door and had to listen through the earpiece as the skip came onto me. That guy was a total creep, and I had a feeling things were off from the very beginning, but I refused to pull the plug because I knew it was the last night RangeMan could get the bad guy. I got him to agree to walk me to my car but just before we got the door he pulled out a knife, put it to my throat and then walked out thinking he could use me to keep himself from harm. In the process of the guys disarming him, I got a little roughed up and ended up with a long gash in my chest that had to be stitched up at the hospital. Lester took me to the ER and while we were waiting he noticed I flinched whenever he held me. He kept pestering me until I told him how dirty it made me feel to have the skips hands all over me and how I struggled to feel like myself until I got a shower. Then I needed time just to pull the plug on the persona I used to have such a creep come on to me and get back into my own head." I remembered him holding my hand on the gurney waiting for the guy to finish my stitches. He was listening so intently that I just spilled it all out for him.

"The next distraction that came up went much smoother, and Lester hung back until the end, then he put his coat on me which smelled wonderful and calmed me down right away, but he didn't try to handle me too much. The rest of the routine he just seemed to understand was what I needed, and I was able to snap out of the post distraction funk that used to last for so long much quicker. I thanked him for knowing just what I needed and giving it to me. But then, that's just how Les is. When he sees there is something I need from him, he'll stop at nothing to give it to me." I told her, knowing the last part sounded incredibly corny but saying it anyway because it was completely true.

"Do you realize half this building seems to be in love with you?" She asked out of nowhere.

"What?" I screeched. "They most certainly are not."

She gave me a look that told me I had no clue what I was talking about, so I decided to level with her. "I know they love me, and half of them probably think of me as a little sister that needs to be protected and watched over. The other half either have women or men of their own, or at some point had a crush on me, but that was only because there was a time that I was the only female that gave them steady attention and didn't do it for their money. That hardly constitutes love."

"I could argue that point with you, but I'm not going to right now," she said with a grin. Amy loved a good debate, so I was a little worried that what ever was coming next must be good to make her pass up a nice banter about love. "The men who are in love with you didn't make a move to make their feelings known to you because of Ranger."

I rolled my eyes. "Please…Ranger used to call the guys to the mats if they disrespected me or were the cause of me being hurt in some way. If they had feelings for me and didn't act on it, I'd say it was because they were afraid, but it had nothing to do with Ranger."

"What was it then?" She seemed curious.

I had to think about it. "Maybe that they were afraid it would screw up the office dynamic if I dated one of them and rejected the others. Of they were afraid I would say no and then they'd lose the contact that they had with me because it would create an awkward working relationship. There was a time right after they really started accepting me, but before we were all as close as we are now, when I was amazed at how they reacted to me. I would brush against them in normal work situations and they would lean into me. I remember touching Cal's tattoo and he shut his eyes and took a deep breath. It was like watching a cat being petted and loving the physical touches. I could tell these guys wanted the contact, but didn't know how to ask or respond to it, so I tried to find ways to touch them without it being sexual, and they were so receptive. Maybe they were worried that if they asked me out I'd stop touching them completely."

She seemed to be mulling that explanation over and made a non-committal move with her head to say it was possible, but she wasn't completely convinced.

"So why was it so easy for you to commit to Lester when you ran from the cop for so long?" She pulled another unexpected bomb out.

"My mother would love to know the answer to that question as well," I told her with a smile. "I guess because Joe wanted to marry me because it was what he wanted, and it was what was expected, and it was the move that made the most sense for his life. Lester wanted to marry me because he loved me, it made the most sense for my life, and he didn't give a shit about what people expected. Mostly, it was because in my gut I always knew Joe and I didn't belong together, but I couldn't exactly push myself away from him either."

"Why couldn't you?" Of course she'd want to get into this.

I looked at the table and said, "If you want to talk about my past relationship woes, it's going to take something a lot stronger than Ben and Jerry's to loosen my tongue."

She jumped up and went to the bottom drawer of her desk and pulled out some paper cups like Bobby gave us water to take pills with, and a bottle of some amber colored liquid. "Shots?" She offered.

This had horrible idea written all over it, so I grinned and said, "Line 'em up and keep 'em coming."

We tossed back three each and then sat back for a few minutes, waiting for our livers to give up and the alcohol to start going straight to our brains. "You know, I'm not sure your evaluation is going to be worth much if you're too drunk to type it," I teased.

"I finished your evaluation last week. Today is just an excuse to make you talk about your past and answer all my questions."

"The last time we drank together we ended up talking about sex, and Les was listening in," I reminded her, beginning to feel the effects of the speed drinking and held out my cup for another.

"If it would help, I could crack the door," she offered. "I think Bobby's in his office."

"Nah, there are some things I don't think they need to hear," I replied honestly. After tossing back the shot I started talking. "I stuck with Joe because I was afraid of being alone, and he was a good friend and comfortable to be around. Ranger I had this unimaginable sexual energy with, but trying to have a relationship with him would be like trying to date the wind. It blew in when you needed it, but you couldn't contain it or make it do what you wanted it to. Once I realized that, it was easier to accept him for what he was in my life – a powerful force that I needed, but I couldn't claim as my own."

"I didn't know drinking made you so poetic," she slurred slightly.

"I don't think I recognized any of this at the time, but hindsight is one hell of a teacher," I admitted, remembering that time when I felt so completely alone after Ranger had made it clear we would never have a relationship, and I finally broke it off with Joe. I think the perspective of having something good and honest with Lester was what helped me to understand what was so wrong with the unhealthy triangle I'd been in for so long. I lifted my newly filled cup and said, "To hindsight."

"The bitch," Amy said with a snicker.

"Yea, why do these life lessons have to hurt so damn much? I mean, I'm happy now, but am I supposed to believe there was no way for me to get where I am without having walked through the hell I went through to get here?" I wondered.

Amy shrugged, "Would you change the past to save yourself the hurt it if meant you couldn't have your happiness now."

"Not a damn bit of it," I quickly admitted, wondering why drinking made us cuss more. "Would you?" I turned the tables on my friend who was deliriously happy with Bobby, but had her own past of horror and pain.

She shook her head. "I miss V, but I love Bobby. I can't imagine my life without either of them."

"I used to wonder why my life was so screwed up," I smiled at how I resisted the temptation to say fucked up and blame the liquor on my sailor's vocabulary. Then I thought of Hal and how he never swore, so I wondered where the whole sailor's swearing stereotype came from.

"Everybody thinks that," Amy assured me. "Even the people that you think have lived easy lives with no issues ever wonder the same thing."

"You mean everybody's as fucked up as I am?" I couldn't believe it, and then I cringed realizing the naughty word had escaped anyway. Maybe I should have turned down that last shot.

Amy laughed and then said, "Well, the grade is really more of a sliding scale, but yes, everybody has something they regret or can't understand about their life that makes them question why their circumstances are the way they are."

There was a little silence while I let that settle in my fuzzy brain, and then she spoke up once more. "It's why I think it's so funny when the guys ask me if they're crazy. If they only knew how sane they were compared to most people, they wouldn't ask me that. The rich cushy life people are the ones I think boarder on deranged most often. They've had very little true trauma in their lives, yet they are paranoid, unhappy, and unfulfilled. They have no frame of reference to appreciate what they have, so they feel discontent. If you ask me that's as close to crazy as you can get."

"It's like my Grandma Mazur likes to say," I began to giggle trying to get out my thought. "Money can't buy you happiness…"

Amy jumped in, having spent enough time with my family to know the rest, "because that's what sex is for."

We both started laughing uncontrollably. Grandma Mazur might be a bit odd and a little scary, but once you got used to that she was funny as hell, and right now I was just drunk enough to appreciate her sense of humor.

Then I remembered why I was here and said, "Wait a minute, you did my evaluation last week?"

"Yep," Amy agreed making the 'p' almost its own syllable.

"How? You didn't even ask me any questions," I was curious how that was legitimate. Of course, getting drunk with the person you were evaluating wasn't exactly legitimate either, so maybe I should let this one go.

"I've been watching how you work and it's damned impressive. You don't back down, you use all the skills you have in your arsenal, and you do what is often a hard job in a way to protect everyone involved. When you are in high stress situations, you use perfectly valid coping mechanisms to get you through, and then you let out the stress in a healthy way afterward. I have no fear what so ever about you flipping out one day, unable to process the strain you are under because of your job."

"You realize you just said it was healthy to slip into denial, right?" I said finding that funny.

"If you were denying it after everything was over and resolved I would be committing you. But you are just avoiding the reality in order to keep functioning to resolve the situation. There's a big difference if you think about it. Plus, I've seen you crash afterward, so I know you don't bottle it once it's all over with," she assured me. That much was true. She'd seen me fall apart in tears, and she'd seen me get pissed off and mad. I never realized those were healthy responses.

"What time is it?" I asked, not able to focus on the little numbers of my watch.

Amy pulled out her phone and told me we'd been here for two hours. "Shit," I responded, making her ask what was wrong with that.

"Les is going to come down to find out why I haven't come back upstairs, and he'll find us a little bit tipsy," I confessed.

"Why is that a problem?" She asked, knowing I didn't hide stuff from Les, and there was no way I was going to sober up in time to keep this a secret.

"He won't care about the drinking, but if I get a good buzz like this and don't cross the line into sloppy pass out drunk territory, then I get really horny," I said probably giving her more information than she needed.

"So again I ask you why that's a problem? You guys still have the apartment upstairs, so just take him and have your naughty way with him," she advised with a wicked smile.

"What about you, does the booze turn you on?" I pushed.

She started laughing before confessing, "All it takes is being in the same room with Bobby lately, and I'm so turned on I hardly know how to control myself. Honestly, I made it through high school and college with better control of my hormones than I have now. But I've never tested the whole being drunk as foreplay idea with Bobby. We never get past the first drink before one of us starts losing clothes."

I realized instead of giving her too much info I had invited her to over share with me. "Do you think they'll be upset that we got wasted on the clock?" I asked, feeling a little guilty.

"I'm not on the clock," she announced, "and you don't have to be either."

Realizing she was right took away the guilt, and I took my phone out of my purse and opened my eyes wide to try and make the screen come into focus a little better. "What are you about to do?" Amy asked, moving over to sit beside me on the couch.

"If we are technically done with my evaluation, and I'm officially not taking any more shots after this one," I announced tossing back my latest refill, "Then I'm going to let my husband know I have a need that only he can meet."

I leaned over so she could read what I was typing in to send as a text to Lester. "You can't send that!" She blurted out.

I squinted hoping that would take away the fuzzy edges of the letters and read what I'd typed, 'I've been drinking and need your services'.

"What's wrong with that?" I asked. "He'll know I'm drunk and horny."

"When is his shift over?" She asked

"Another hour," I guessed, based on what time I thought the phone was showing.

"Then that will mean he'll be sitting at his desk picturing you horny and unable to do anything about it. That's mean," she pointed out. "Maybe just tell him we're done and staying down here to drink. He can figure out what kind of state you'll be in by the time he gets down here in an hour."

"I can do that," I agreed pressing the delete button and typing, 'Doing shots with Amy. I miss you.' I pushed send without meaning to.

She read behind me and started laughing. "I think that may be worse than your first one. Poor Les, maybe I should send something to Bobby so he can explain."

She pulled out her phone snickering as she punched in, 'Steph and I are doing shots and she told Les she's horny. Can you help him?'

After she pressed send and showed it to me I burst out laughing. "You realize you basically told your husband to help my husband with his hard on."

"Oh, do you think he'll do it?" She joked as we both began to giggle like school girls.

As we began to calm down I sighed and said, "Why is the idea of Bobby helping Les with a hard on so damn exciting?"

Amy made a noise of agreement and said, "All guys want to see their girlfriends make out, but they'd never return the favor and let the girls watch as they service their guy friends."

"Yea," I agreed as my imagination got carried away with that image. There's no way I'd ever share Lester with another woman, but I had to admit the visual in my head of Bobby and Les with each other had me feeling a little tingly. Well, it was the image, or it may have been the shot Amy gave me while we were talking about it.

Somehow in the process of texting, reading over each other's shoulders, and pouring/drinking shots, we were side by side with our arms crossed over each other. It was comfortable and comforting to have a friend like this that understood me, didn't judge me, and seemed to get the way my mind worked because hers worked the exact same way.

Before I could get too carried away thinking how lucky I was to have Amy's friendship the door opened with a bang and Les and Bobby came in holding their phones as though they'd shared messages with each other.

"Just like I told you," Bobby spoke first. "They're absolutely wasted."

"I'm not wasted," I defended myself drunken state.

"No," Les agreed with a grin, "But you are way past a little tipsy."

He hooked his hands under my arms and assisted me in standing while someone had the audacity to spin the room making it harder than it should have been. "That may be true, but I'm in that really happy place where I'm feeling no pain, and I'm wishing we could try out that position you suggested where my leg is up over your…"

Les cut me off by kissing me. I'd like to think it was to announce that he was taking me to the apartment on four to have his wicked way with me, but it was probably to keep me from announcing to our closest friends that we were getting rather creative in our sexual positions. When he pulled back, he had the sexiest gleam in his eye.

I clung to his shoulders to insure I didn't fall over and then looked back to Amy who was looking at Bobby like he was already naked. "Thanks for the chat," I told her.

"Maybe next time we'll get to the bottom of the mystery of why they won't let us watch them get it on," she blurted out, causing me to start laughing all over again.

Bobby and Lester exchanged worried glances, but neither asked for an explanation. They probably knew whatever it meant was something they'd be better off in the dark over.

I tried to take a few steps but nearly tripped over my own feet, or the table in front of me, I wasn't really sure which one. Les swept me into his arms and walked out of the office. "You know I want to have sex with you, right?" I tried to say it in a seductive way, but I could tell the words were slurring, and I wasn't sure it sounded like English.

His chest shook as he responded. "If you're still awake when we get to the apartment I'll let you have your wicked way with me."

"Oh goodie," I replied shutting my eyes so the movement didn't make me any dizzier. I let my head rest on his shoulder and sighed at how wonderful it felt to be in his arms. I was surprised at how dark it felt with my eyes shut but I didn't fight it. When I was with my husband fighting was rarely on my mind. Instead, I let the feeling of safety and love wash over me as my thoughts drifted away.

I could feel myself falling asleep and couldn't stop it. As my own thoughts drifted I could sense a dream beginning and was thankful I gave in. My dream mind took over and in front of me was an image of Bobby and Lester taking each other's clothes off. Obviously I wasn't going to be having sex, but at least in my dreams I could still enjoy watching somebody having fun. Oh man, I wasn't sure if my dream and reality were even close, but I could feel the smile on my face growing from the hot image my mind held.

"Sleep Beautiful," Lester whispered with a kiss to my temple. Based on the rating of this dream there was no way I was going to fight it anymore.


End file.
